Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something
by PiercedBlueCat
Summary: Sherlock acutally gets sick and vehemently refuses to accept it while John finds out things about his friend that explain a lot, but also make everything a bit difficult. John struggles to find a way to help his friend, though Sherlock is oblivious until he gets worse. Takes place after TBB, before SiB. Sick Sherlock, Doctor!John.
1. Chapter 1 - Day 1 - Friday

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

_I never though__t__ I'd write a sic-fic but this just kind of happened_.

_This was beta-ed by atypicalhumanbeing/ 221bhannah. Many thanks to her for her efforts/work. __Check out her __stories__._

_This takes place after TBB, before TGG._

_._

**_For all of you who are already following: _**

_I was recently told that my English is so bad it's putting people off, so I will upload an improved version of this now. _

_There is nothing new, I'm just trying to improve the reading experience. Sorry. _

_The first chapter of this story was originally published on March 23rd 2014 and the story was completed on May 3rd 2014. _

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**Day 1 - Friday**

They had been out all morning, working with Lestrade on a crime scene and it was afternoon when they came back.

John switched on his laptop to check for emails while Sherlock went to his room to change. He had gotten his neat pants dirty crawling through the mud of an industrial chicken farm.

"Maybe you should have a shower, too," John yelled through the flat.

"I think I will, actually," Sherlock's voice was muffled and sounded as if he was getting out of his clothes. The next thing John heard was the bathroom door and a short time later the shower. Actually he was a bit worried, even angry when Sherlock had searched through the farm with Anderson and another lab technician. The other two had been dressed in lab overalls and had worn dusk masks, but not Sherlock Holmes. He was above such things and didn't need protection. He solely had taken off his coat to protect it from the dirt. They had quite a discussion about being irresponsibly vain and childish with the protective gear, but it was no use, Sherlock had not put on any of the stuff that any sane person would have taken gratefully.

John had made a late cold lunch consisting of sandwiches and fresh vegetables with a dip. Sherlock had actually eaten two sandwiches, and finally he spread a thick layer of the dip over another slice of toast; he ignored the vegetables completely.

"Sherlock, the dip was for the vegetables, you could've at least left me more than a tablespoon." John complained while he wiped the meagre remains out of the bowl with a slice of carrot.

"Make some more," Sherlock suggested.

John decided it was not worth it and munched the carrots without a dip. Sherlock threw him a slightly disgusted look about his chewing noises but John ignored him.

After the meal, they had discussed further details about the case and where the body might have been hidden. For once they had a murder without a corpse and the search for it had already lasted three days.

Lestrade came by in the evening and brought some new facts and lab results.

.

At one point during their dinner (Sherlock had decided that his one would consist of a mug of tea), John had seen Sherlock lift his mug with a hand that was slightly shaking.

"You're okay?" John asked.

"I'm fine, just tired."

That must be a first, Sherlock Holmes admitting he was tired. John wondered if it translated into 'I am dead on my feet and barely able to stand.'

They had finished the meal and John was thinking about writing another blog entry, he was much too wired to go to bed already.

Sherlock had stood up… and swayed.

"You're sure you're okay?" The doctor, out of reflex, reached for Sherlock's arm and stood up.

"Yes!" Sherlock hissed and raised his hands, signalling being touched was not an option. He headed for his bedroom without further elaboration and John stood kind of suspicious and lost in the living room.

He needed some seconds before he decided to finish the TV-show and then start to clear the table instead of following the detective. When he stored the left-over food into the refrigerator, he saw Sherlock's door was wide open. Usually Sherlock closed it when planning to sleep.

John stood there for several seconds, listening, and not sure if he needed to be suspicious.

When something fell in Sherlock's bedroom he decided to take a look, though it sounded like a shoe falling over the edge of the bed.

As silent as possible he looked into the room, Sherlock was indeed pulling off his shoes and the second one fell while John was watching.

Sherlock was on the bed, fully clothed, on top of the duvet, on his stomach, eyes already closed.

"Sherlock?" John whispered.

No reaction.

"Sherlock? You're alright?" He tried a bit louder.

"'m fine. Leave 'e alone."

Not good. Something was off. John stepped closer. Sherlock was kind of pale and looked really exhausted. The doctor decided to leave him for now but check on him in half an hour when he had fallen asleep. He headed back into the living room, cleaning the table.

.

Thirty-eight minutes later John neared Sherlock's room again. Sherlock had not made a noise and he wanted to make sure he was okay before heading upstairs.

His friend had not moved, he was still on his stomach on the bed, still fully dressed and pale. The doctor stepped closer. Sherlock's breathing was a bit of an effort and since one of his wrists was in easy reach John wrapped his fingers around it. Sherlock felt clammy and his heartbeat was slow. He did not react to the touch.

"Sherlock?" No reaction. John shook him gently and Sherlock grunted, he actually grunted!

"Sherlock? Are you with me?"

"What do you want?" Sherlock asked, as if fully awake and in a normal conversation.

"Are you awake?" John knew Sherlock had an excellent auto-pilot.

"Yes, of course, what do you want?" Sherlock repeated.

"You seem more than just exhausted. I'd like to take your BP." John explained in a low voice.

"No! Why are you bugging me when I finally try to sleep?" Sherlock asked; John was still not sure if he was awake or really heard his request.

He went for the closet in the stairway and fetched his emergency bag.

John didn't need a sphygmomanometer to determine Sherlock's BP was low. But John inserted an infrared ear thermometer, it said Sherlock was running a slight temperature… but Sherlock was either dead to the world or simply ignored him, which was kind of unlikely.

"Sherlock, I need you to lie on your side, can you manage?" John asked in a quite loud voice. When Sherlock gave an annoyed grunt again he shook him to make him more awake. "Come on, turn around." Sherlock did, not complaining, he just did.

Sherlock's face was giving the impression he was relaxed but John saw how stiffly he moved. Sherlock was sick!

"Sherlock, can you describe to me how you feel?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I'm fine."

"I can see from the kitchen you are not fine, so tell me how you feel."

"I'm fine, I just need to sleep a bit." Now this was already an odd thing. John had never heard Sherlock actually expressing that he needed to sleep out loud!

"At least get out of your outside clothing."

"No."

"Come on, I will help you. It is not really comfy like that!" John offered.

"I said NO!" Sherlock was getting unnerved.

"Okay. Okay… Tell me if you need anything."

"Yes, go away," Sherlock voiced his need.

" that already," John turned around and fetched a blanket. After he draped it over Sherlock he left the room, leaving the door wide open.

He decided to write some mails instead of heading to bed. He needed to check on Sherlock again and make sure he was okay before heading to bed himself.

.

About an hour later, John tiptoed into his flatmate's room. Sherlock was lying on his side but wore an expression of slight distress on his face.

"Sherlock?"

"Hm?" came the immediate reply, so not asleep.

"How are you doing?"

"Go away."

John doubted this conversation would be much different from the one they had an hour ago and decided to work in silence. He fetched the thermometer once more, placed it into Sherlock's ear and held it there. Sherlock frowned but did nothing else.

While he waited for it to beep, he watched his flatmate closely. A loud rumbling from the area of Sherlock's stomach made him raise his eyebrows. The device beeped, slight temperature, like before.

"Sherlock, does your stomach hurt?"

"No."

John reached for Sherlock's shoulder and gently pushed him onto his back, Sherlock's body followed at first but then he started battering the doctor's hands.

Relieving posture? John stopped the movement, if Sherlock was resisting there was no way to examine him.

"When did you last eat? I mean before today's meal with me?" He verbally probed, maybe his stomach was just overstrained with the meal after a period of not eating for… one and a half days? Sherlock's stomach made more gurgling noises.

"I need to examine your abdomen, roll onto your back," John ordered and now Sherlock did not resist.

"Everything is fine," Sherlock sat up.

John knew he only had a few seconds before Sherlock would jump out of the bed and start an evasive manoeuvre. So, he leaned over the detective and pushed him back down gently. The fact that Sherlock did not resist made him raise his eyebrows. John hurried to probe several spots on Sherlock's stomach. He had barely touched him when Sherlock's face contorted.

"That hurts?"

Sherlock shook his head. John touched another spot.

"Are you nauseous?"

Another headshake and Sherlock started batting his hand away again.

"Work with me here. You might have caught a stomach bug."

"I'm fine," Sherlock sat up again and was about to swing his legs over the bed away from John when a dizzy spell hit him. He tried to hide it but John's professional look didn't miss it. He had known Sherlock for long enough now to know that there were two possibilities: either Sherlock was really concentrated on something else so he honestly missed feeling miserable or in pain…. he seemed to have problems registering it at all sometimes, or he just didn't notice, the other way was he refused to grant his transport to feel lousy and suppressed all symptoms and pains. He was really good at that. To distinguish between the two, John needed Sherlock's help. It was absolutely possible Sherlock hadn't realised he was in pain. In the beginning of them working together John had thought he was just stubborn, but over time he had learned how different Sherlock's perception really was.

John rounded the bed, "What are you doing?"

"Getting away from you touching me," Sherlock answered honestly.

"No need, I'll go to bed and leave you alone. Lie back down… Sleep," he knew it was no use, as long as Sherlock didn't grant him access this would just be a waste of time and end in a 'domestic' as Mrs Hudson would say. If Sherlock really had caught a bug it would show more signs soon and since there was nothing a doctor could do at the moment anyway John decided to let it go for now.

He headed for the door; Sherlock was still sitting on the far side of the bed.

"Good night," John left the room, the door wide open. He slowed down in the hallway and stood at the entrance to the kitchen, listening. Sherlock did not move at first. When he finally did, he seemed to be lying back down, not getting up or trying to close the door.

Okay, so he felt shitty, maybe hadn't even noticed the door was open.

John decided to sleep on the couch. Sherlock Holmes sick would be an unpredictable thing. He presumed it would go one of two ways: either Sherlock would be grumpy and whiney as a kid or he would try to manage his misery with willpower and denial. Both ways it would be difficult.

John had never imagined Sherlock could get sick at all, and Sherlock always pointed out that he didn't. In fact in all the months they had known each other now Sherlock had not even had a mild cold or a running nose (well, maybe from an experiment, but not from an infection). Which was quite remarkable considering how careless Sherlock used to treat his body and its needs, and not eating and sleeping on a regular basis.

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A/N:

Thank you for reading.

I'd love to get some feedback.


	2. Chapter 2 - Day 1 - Friday night

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

_._

_This chapter was beta-ed by atypicalhumanbeing/ 221bhannah. Many thanks to her for her efforts/work. Check out her stories._

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**Chapter 2**

John had dozed off for about ten minutes, or at least that was how long it felt when he jerked awake. At first, he didn't know what had woken him, but then he heard a moan. Sherlock must be getting worse. He stood up and headed towards his room.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock was sweating and his breathing was rapid. John touched his forehead with the back of his hand; the fever had not got worse but was still there.

"Sherlock… Come on, wake up."

Sherlock blinked, then gulped.

"You're gonna be sick?" John asked, knowing the signs. He hurried to the bathroom to fetch a bucket.

"Of course not!" he heard Sherlock mumble, still half asleep.

"Do you think you'd be able to warn me if you realise you'll throw up?"

"Yes, I did throw up before."

"And how long ago was that?"

"Maybe… nine years and two months?"

"Sorry, but I'm not sure I want to trust you on this, better be safe than sorry," John placed the bucket next to the bed and sat down on the edge.

"Don't be ridiculous, one does not throw up without a reason, and there is no reason here."

"Sherlock, as long as you don't let me examine you and you don't answer my questions, I'll have to rely on what I see… and that tells me you're not well and you might have caught a stomach bug."

"That's bullshit. Let me sleep." He sank back into his pillow and John decided to be a bit more invasive here; foul language was another sign that his flatmate was not his usual self. He leaned closer and rested his hand on Sherlock's shoulder.

"Sherlock, being a friend doesn't only mean being there for another person, but also trusting his or her judgement, and occasionally following his or her lead if they tell you to. Let me do this."

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"I…" but then he just shut his mouth gulped and a second later closed his eyes, too. "Fine, go ahead. I will endure it for you, then."

John didn't like this at all, and he pulled the blanket away. Sherlock was on his back, not moving.

"If your body needs to get rid of something you need to let it go. You know that, don't you?" John just rested his flat hand against the left side of Sherlock's stomach before starting an examination. He knew Sherlock didn't like being touched, so he tried to do this carefully. Sherlock was sweating and now seemed to clench his jaw shut.

"I will not puke!" he pressed out.

John could feel Sherlock's stomach cramping under his hand.

"Do not try to hold it back if it happens, you understand me?"

Sherlock didn't react.

John started probing his abdomen and lower stomach.

"Tell me if this hurts or makes you sick."

"Why would I…"

But at that moment, something caused a reaction. Before Sherlock even knew what was happening, he was retching. John had been expecting it and had the bucket under his mouth and dragged him over it before Sherlock's brain even registered he was about to puke.

Sherlock seemed to be just wondering how he had gotten into the position and why he was feeling so ugly when the first round of vomit hit the bottom of the bucket.

"Sherlock… Just breathe; it'll be over in a minute… Just relax," John soothed, since Sherlock seemed to be having a problem catching his breath.

John wondered if Sherlock would be able to sit upright much longer. He was white as a sheet and the look on his face was of… surprise, and disgust, and panic.

"It's alright… Just let it go."

A few moments later the puking seemed to have finished, and Sherlock started moving.

"What are you doing?"

Sherlock pushed the blanket aside and tried to lift his legs over the edge of the bed. John put the bucket on the floor in haste and reached for Sherlock's shoulders, and held him in place.

"I need to get rid of this and sit in front of the toilet," Sherlock was shivering.

"Don't be ridiculous, you cannot get up."

"I will not throw up into this again… and the smell makes my brain sick, too… I need to empty the bucket."

"Sherlock, I can get rid of it, why don't you let me take it and lie back?" Why did he think he needed to clean the bucket himself?

"No… I am sorry," Sherlock stammered.

John frowned. What was happening here? Why was Sherlock apologising? The man never said he was sorry no matter how inappropriately he behaved.

John gently pressed his flatmate back into his pillow.

"Sherlock, you'd not be able to stand up right now, just wait! I'll get rid of the waste and get you a washcloth."

Sherlock appeared not to know what to do, he looked lost in fact.

"Don't try to get up!" John warned.

Sherlock just stared at him.

John hurried to go to the bathroom and came back three minutes later. Sherlock's behaviour was kind of… out of line… but he couldn't grasp it yet.

"Just do me a favour and let me finish that examination," he stood next to the bed.

Sherlock was still kind of staring, a frown on his face.

"Please! Tell me… Are you in pain?"

Sherlock shook his head once more.

"You look as if you're in pain, you would tell me if you were, right?"

Sherlock pressed his lips together.

"Okay, relax," he started probing Sherlock's abdomen once more, carefully. Sherlock didn't react.

"Tell me where you're hurting."

"Eh… that might be a problem… I switched it off," Sherlock looked ashamed, but at least he had shared some information with him.

"What?"

"I switched off the pain reception."

John stood there for a moment, his mouth open.

"How…? You can switch it off?"

"Not always and not fully and not all kinds of pain, but… yes."

"That's kind of odd, mate, you know that?"

"No."

"Switch it back on then," John tried to see it from the logical point of view with which Sherlock had obviously tried to handle this.

"Can't."

"What?" Now that was even more odd.

"Why not?"

"Switch is gone."

"Blimey… You're telling me you can manage your pain reception but misplaced the mechanism somehow?"

"Of course I can manage it, can't you?"

"Not to that degree."

"Maybe I classified the kind of pain wrong and now it is not received as pain," Sherlock mused.

John leaned his head back and faced the ceiling to think more clearly… this was Sherlock, but he needed to figure this out in order to help him… definitely new grounds here. No patient had ever reported such a problem before.

No wonder he didn't like doctors or hospitals, telling this to a normal doctor would probably not help him to receive treatment, it would get him into a psych ward instead of being tended to in the way he needed.

"Okay, you try to find that switch while I examine you, alright?" John suggested, and focussed all his attention to every tiny move, sound and perception he received from Sherlock's body. He even used examination techniques usually only used on unconscious patients or babies or those who could not voice their pain.

"Okay," John had his hands flat over Sherlock's stomach once more, concentrating on feeling for cramps.

"Your stomach is cramping a bit and I fear you're gonna have some nasty bathroom sessions ahead, so be prepared… to tell me you need the bathroom. You don't want to fall instead of getting there in time," John tried to point out why Sherlock needed to be honest.

"Hmmm," Sherlock hummed.

"You feel kind of weak, right? You want to change?"

Sherlock shook his head. He was still wearing his dress shirt and trousers.

"Open your collar then." Every normal person would have done at least that hours ago, but Sherlock seemed to have switched off all kinds of negative feeling perceptions.

"Try to get some rest," John opted against trying to make him change for now.

Sherlock nodded, fumbling with the button.

"Okay, you try to relax. Yell if you need anything," John wondered if he was just agreeing to get rid of him. He headed for the couch to take a nap.

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_A/N:_

_Thank you for reading._

_I'd love to get some feedback._


	3. Chapter 3 - Day 2 - Saturday

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

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**Chapter 3 **

**Day 2 - Saturday**

In the early hours of the morning, John woke up when Sherlock ran to the bathroom. He went to the kitchen to listen and make some tea, but also fetched some items he might need later. If Sherlock's problem was a bug, he needed to be aware not to catch it in order to be a help; if it was something like food poisoning, his flatmate would need some meds and painkillers and they'd need to find out how he got it. He went back to Sherlock's room with the tea when he heard that Sherlock had returned to his bed.

Sherlock followed John's every movement but didn't say anything.

"Mornin'. Brought some tea… I think you should try to tell me how you're feeling… Just try to explain what you're experiencing," John tried.

"Tired, bugging me. Can you print out a sign directing to up, down, right and left… I might need it to tell me where those things are."

"Sherlock, are you delirious?" John sat on the bed; Sherlock was looking through the room kind of disoriented now.

"No… you told me to express my needs."

"I did, but this is somehow… awkward," John reached for Sherlock's brow, feeling the temperature.

"Why?" Sherlock struggled to sit upright again but did not shove him away. This was an improvement.

When John had sat down on Sherlock's bed and could clearly see that Sherlock did not like it, he had decided for the absolute minimum of touch then. Now Sherlock allowed him even this contact without throwing a fit.

Was this progress in being trusted?

"Most people know that stuff you want me to put on a sign," John tried to make him lie back down but he resisted.

"But I'm not most people and I'm kind of confused where _up_ is right now."

"Oh god, you're serious?! You are telling me you have trouble with your equilibrium or a giddy spell?" John asked, finally understanding what the problem was.

"Maybe…?"

"Okay… Just lie back and relax…"

Sherlock shook his head.

"I want to change."

Finally! Good idea. The detective would be much more comfortable in 'home clothes', as he put it.

"Good, what do you want?" John headed for the closet.

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing…? You're not planning on participating in changing clothes, aren't you?"

"Yes, actually I will, you can barely stand up and you just asked for a 'this-side-up sign'. Don't tell me you just came to understand the principle of privacy."

"No. But I am not a child."

"So the problem here is accepting help or needing help?"

"I don't need help and I will not accept it."

"Okay, then if you add to your misery by falling and hitting your head, your choice."

He handed Sherlock a fresh set of pyjamas and turned around to give Sherlock privacy.

After waiting for two minutes without Sherlock moving he got that the other man waited for him to leave. He went to the kitchen to make some tea. Sherlock would need to get the taste of vomit out of his mouth and they had better make sure he drank enough.

Five minutes later, he returned to the room. Sherlock was sitting on the bed in the fresh pyjama bottoms and just started to button up the shirt.

"Stop, let me take your BP first." John reached for the shirt to make it slip down Sherlock's arm again.

Sherlock flinched but didn't react in an angry or grumpyway; he just sat there. Changing had exhausted him that much?

John took his BP and frowned, pretty low. He then helped Sherlock button the thing up.

"Lie back and sleep," the doctor ordered gently.

Sherlock lifted his legs over the bed but then frowned and stayed in a half sitting position on his elbows. When Sherlock's eyes closed he decided to see what would happen next and what his flatmate would do.

"I'm gonna watch some telly, drink your tea! You want anything else?"

Sherlock shook his head and reached for the tea.

"Just yell if you need anything, alright?"

When Sherlock nodded once more, John decided to check on him once every twenty minutes and went to the living room.

.

Sherlock hurried to the bathroom quite frequently all day. Once or twice he vomited into the toilet. He refused to throw up in a bucket again and preferred to camp on the bathroom floor to prevent it.

He also rejected John's care and sent him away whenever John hovered.

When the doctor knocked at the bathroom door after another attack of nausea, his friend yelled back that he wanted to be left alone. As soon as Sherlock had left, John went in after him and made sure it was all clean and sterilised. The last thing he needed was to get sick, too.

John had called the surgery and told them he wouldn't come in for the next two days. He might be contagious; to catch the thing from Sherlock and then infecting a patient was a no-go.

He napped on the sofa to catch up with the lost night. With one ear he listened to whatever Sherlock did. It was not a lovely task, but since Sherlock seemed not to be able to put his distress into words, this was kind of necessary. The day went on like that.

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_A/N:_

_I'd really love to hear what you think._

_Constructive criticism welcome_


	4. Chapter 4 - Day 2 - Saturday night

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

_._

_This chapter was beta-ed by atypicalhumanbeing/ 221bhannah. Many thanks to her for her efforts/work. Check out her stories at FF._ …

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**Chapter 4 - Saturday**

In the late evening, Sherlock once more threw up and this time John decided that he needed to go see to him as soon as he returned to his room. Sherlock had refused being examined further, or helped at all.

John made some more tea; he needed to make sure Sherlock was getting enough fluids or this would go downhill fast. This vomiting had lasted twenty-four hours now; if it was a bug it should be over soon. If it was not noticeably better by Sunday morning he'd need to consider something else and take more drastic action.

While he was waiting for the tea to finish, his phone beeped and he went to get it. He stared at the message; it was nonsense.

'Did I misplacd ot lost you? Do I ned sending seach praty? SH'

He didn't hesitate any longer and headed for the bathroom.

Sherlock had not come out of it in a long time.

"Sherlock?" he knocked at the door.

No response.

"I'll come in if you don't tell me how you're doing." This usually would be enough of a threat to make Sherlock reply, but this time he didn't.

The doctor cursed inwardly when there was not response at all.

"Sherlock?" he knocked, no response.

Another ten seconds later he opened the door carefully.

Sherlock sat sunken beside the porcelain bowl, leaning against the tub. The seat was raised and he didn't react to John's intrusion.

"Sherlock?"

"Hmmnn?"

One of Sherlock's hands was on the brim of the tub and John reached for his wrist, taking care not to startle him.

Sherlock's pulse was slow and not as strong as John would have liked. His skin was still kind of clammy and he didn't really acknowledge the other man's presence. Sherlock was probably a bit dehydrated and maybe even a bit out of it after so many hours of pain and puking and diarrhoea.

"Sherlock? I need you back in your bed. Can you manage to get up?" John tried.

"Hnnn," Sherlock grunted.

"Was that a yes or a no?"

Sherlock nodded and seemed to gather his will to get up. The obvious effort made the doctor reach for him and assist him. Not even fully raised, Sherlock started to sway and would have landed on the floor, nose first, if John hadn't kept him upright.

They managed to get him back into the bed unharmed.

"Sherlock, this is getting serious, a normal bug should not make you this disoriented. You really need to tell me how you feel."

"What for?"

"So I can help you."

"No one wants to help me."

"Well, I do… but you need to participate in it. So please tell me where you're hurting?"

"So you can twist my words… and make me the bad one?" Sherlock sounded kind of uncannily vulnerable right now.

"Sherlock… I'd never… wait, who twists your words?" John frowned once more.

Was Sherlock delirious? He took his temperature again, it was a fever, but not that high.

"Doctors," Sherlock whispered.

"When did doctors twist your words?"

"Always… and then they say I'm lying and they don't help," Sherlock sounded like a child.

"Tell me what you said to them and why they said you were lying," John decided he needed to find the out what was going on here.

"When… when I describe how things feel… and what hurts."

"And what did you tell the doctors?"

"That my ribs were broken."

"And what did the doctor say?"

"He felt for them and it made me want to cry because it hurt so much… but I managed to behave like a grown-up and didn't show anything… and the doctor said the ribs were okay and then talked to Mummy… and he told her I was fine and lying because no kid could possibly know that his ribs were broken and especially which ones and… even if they had a broken rib before… He said I was lying because the bike was broken and I wanted to evade the punishment for breaking it."

"Sherlock, how old were you?"

"I'm eight," Sherlock was lying on his side now, eyes closed, his lax left fist close to his nose.

"And why did you think your ribs were broken?"

"I could feel it. One broken and one fractured, left side, last two ones."

"And did your Mum believe the doctor?"

"She was very angry with me and scolded me."

"What happened then?"

"Nothing. Hurt for weeks."

"Did you tell your parents that it hurt?"

"Yes… They told me I was fine and that it didn't hurt and if I could feel it, it was false information and that I needed to learn to ignore false information."

John pinched the bridge of his nose and blew out air. This was not good.

"Was that the only doctor who said you were lying?"

"No," Sherlock was not giving any information without a question. His right hand was clenching the duvet. This was so not good! John briefly wondered if it was okay to interview Sherlock in this state and if his friend would remember later.

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_A/N:_

_I hope not to offend any medical personnel by writing this. I am just trying to explain in which situations having a super accurate awareness are the hardest and how bad it really is when you know __no-one __will help because __no-one __understands. So please don't feel offended, I am really interested in medicine and would have worked in the field, if my PTSD hadn't got in the way._

_Please review if you like my work._


	5. Chapter 5 - Day 2 - Saturday night 2

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands __and no profit is being made__._

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_This chapter was beta-ed by atypicalhumanbeing/ __221bhannah__. Many thanks to her for her efforts/work. Check out her stories._

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_I was asked for a change of perspective. Be assured dear 'guest reviewer' I love to show more than one POV in my stories and there will be at least another six chapters._

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**Chapter 5**

"Who else?" John wondered if it was a bad idea to use Sherlock's condition like this.

"I had a small operation, but after weeks and weeks it didn't stop hurting."

"Yeah, what then?" John probed when Sherlock fell silent.

"I went back to the doctor, he inspected me and said it was all fine and nothing to find."

"Where did he operate on you?"

"Inside my nose," Sherlock tried to pull up his duvet even higher.

"And I said it was burning in there and sometimes I had a nosebleed and hurt all the time and… I… I…"

"How long did that hurt?"

"A year maybe… and I went to the doctor more than five times."

"Wait… You?… As in 'you alone'?"

"Most of the time."

"How old were you?"

"Eleven."

"Where was your Mum?"

"Away."

John raised his eyebrows once more.

"I'm a smart kid; I can go to the doctor alone!" Sherlock stated in the tone of a slightly offended child, but still half asleep.

"I know… What did the doctor do when you showed up there again and again?"

"He yelled at me and told me there was nothing… an' that I wanted to be a nuisance… and he sprayed something into my nose and it hurt so much I cried… and he told not to be such a girl and shut up… and to think better before getting on his nerves with my lies again."

"What did you do?"

"I went home."

"No, I mean… what happened then?"

"Nothing."

"Well, did it stop hurting later?"

"No, it went on for years, so maybe yes because eventually, after years, it did… but half a year after that, I made Mummy let me see another doctor."

"What happened there?"

"He looked into my nose and didn't want to speak to me… and ordered me to come back with my mother."

"Why did he not want to speak with you?"

"I don't know. But he was a very nice man."

"Did your Mum come?"

"Yes."

"And then?"

"He told us something went wrong with the operation and that the other doctor was trying to hide it… because it was his faulty work… And that my nose had been infected for a long time now because of that and that there was scar tissue… He was a nice doctor… 'nd he gave me medication and it didn't go away but got better."

"Where there more doctors who said you were lying?"

"Yes… they also said I was lying because they didn't believe a kid my age could describe things so precisely… I was not helped," Sherlock whispered.

John pressed his lips together. Sherlock's senses were so accurate and precise, how could a doctor be so dumb and treat a highly intelligent child like that? Well, he didn't doubt Sherlock was constantly misunderstood as a kid, in fact he still was as an adult regularly, at least by people who did not know him. A lot of things fell into place with this; John looked at his friend's closed eyes.

How did Sherlock get into this state? Maybe this was more of a memory, triggered by being sick… he decided he had probed enough and would ask Sherlock more when he was fully awake.

"Sherlock… You can tell me where you hurt. I'll never tell you to suppress your pain and I won't accuse you of lying. I promise I'll listen to you until I fully understand what you're trying to describe… Okay?"

"'kay," Sherlock whispered.

"Does your belly hurt?"

"Yes."

"Is it worse than yesterday?"

"No."

"All right, now we need to find out if you are dehydrated."

He took Sherlock's hand and pulled the skin to test how fast it went back to a flat surface.

"I am."

"What?" this was the last John had expected, "You know that because…?"

"I've been before and know what it feels like and I know the symptoms and…"

"Blimey, then why didn't you do anything about it?"

"Too dizzy."

"What did you drink during the past three days?"

No answer, but John could feel Sherlock relaxing into sleep. His breathing slowed down and deepened. The doctor went into the kitchen and put on the kettle, then poured some ginger ale into a glass and stirred until it stopped sparkling. He returned to Sherlock with the soda, then gently shook his friend's shoulder.

"Sherlock?… Come on. What did you drink during the past three days?"

Sherlock blinked, then frowned when awareness came back.

"John? Uh, glad… I didn't lose you… somewhere."

"Glad you're back with me."

"Back?"

"You were a bit out of it, maybe dehydration. What did you drink during the past three days?"

"All liquids I… consumed?"

"Yes, please."

"Five mugs of tea, one glass of tap water, a small bottle of mineral water."

"Is that all?"

"Eh… no, maybe three coffees."

"Jesus, Sherlock this is not enough at all! No wonder you are dehydrated. We need to get this under control. I'll get some fluids, I'll be back in a minute, don't go to sleep."

John brought back tea. Sherlock allowed him to lift him into a sitting position. He drank half a glass before refusing to continue. He was slightly trembling.

"Will this ever go away?" Sherlock looked disoriented and it made John bite his lips with empathy. The idea that his friend thought it might not was making him a bit uneasy.

"This will go away. I'll get some meds and you'll feel better tomorrow. Sleep a bit now. It'll be better in the morning." The doctor stood up, thinking how to fight the dehydration fast. John briefly rested his hand on Sherlock's shoulder.

The detective closed his eyes and he only needed three minutes until he was asleep.

When his breathing deepened, John left the room.

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_A/N:_

_Please review._


	6. Chapter 6 - Day 1 – Sherlock's POV

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

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**Chapter 6 **

**Day 1 – Friday: Sherlock's POV**

When Lestrade had come by Sherlock noticed for the first time that something felt different than it usually did. Eating often made him feel slower, slightly tired. Digestion needed energy, but this was different. It felt like preferring to sit.

He needed almost an hour to realise the odd feeling in his limbs might be described as a distant light trembling deep inside his extremities.

Solution: Trying to stop it by will.

It did work, but came back a few minutes later.

The feeling grew constantly and during their dinner an hour later Sherlock didn't felt the slightest need to eat something solid, so he decided against it, but he had a tea. This was when he noticed he not only felt the trembling, he saw it, too.

Annoying.

John also did, and promptly asked about it.

He realised that he had felt something similar before when injured, but _this_ had several other aspects in it. Those were new, and the most important fact - why he couldn't place the sensation - was: he was not injured at all.

During the meal another perception irritated him, some time later.

He had never felt like this before.

Or had erased the memory?

There were waves, moving through his torso, ugly feeling surges, not really pain, but he wasn't sure what else it might be.

Ignore and wait for further clues.

Within fifteen minutes it became more and more straining to ignore it and he searched the database - that which contained descriptions of other people's sensations and translated them into his own ones - for reference.

Nothing there so far. Collecting more data.

John was bugging him with the question how he was doing.

Quite annoying, there weren't any reasons for the questions. Ignoring requests.

Then another thing was added and a clue was forming… he felt slightly dizzy.

He was probably tired and since John was bothering him, he decided to retreat into his room. Without making a decision he found himself on the bed, on his stomach… He was tired, really tired.

.

He must have dozed off because suddenly John was in his room and he could feel the taste of sleep in the caves of his head. He didn't like it, never had.

Something else was off.

"I'm fine. Leave me alone."

He was briefly annoyed when he felt his privacy invaded, but then decided just to switch off John being there. He slipped into an odd sleeping mode again, and did not hear the thermometer John used.

Some time later he woke up again, this time he was sure he had really slept, John was still there, bugging him, even being so impolite to touch him and tell him to lie on his side. Sherlock tried to move away from the rude disturbance but then John told him that he'd leave anyway. Maybe he had realised how rude he was. Finally…

.

But only a short time later John was back in his room, he was actually touching him again!

Sherlock was getting pissed.

He didn't want to lie on his back!

Why, for god's sake, didn't John just go away?

Besides being annoyed there was something else feeling not right.

"When have you eaten last? I mean before today's meal with me?" John asked.

Was he feeling so odd because he was hungry? Stomach making loud noises… check.

He had eaten lunch with John, and his stomach never made _this _kind of noise, even when he was hungry.

"I need to examine your abdomen, roll onto your back," John ordered and now Sherlock did not resist.

If he'd let John do it he'd probably go away faster.

"Everything is fine," Sherlock sat up.

He mentally rolled his eyes about his own slowness.

What if he _was_ getting sick?

No way, he never got sick! Maybe that's why he couldn't put the symptoms?

No! He was not sick, being sick wasn't something that just happened.

He just needed to manage it correctly and it would not become a sickness.

Fight it and it'll go away.

The doctor was still there, distracting him.

Sherlock ignored him once more, but when John started touching him again he tried to get out of the bed to flee from the room. But John told him he would go now and John finally vanished.

.

Someone shook his shoulder.

What was it now?

"You're gonna be sick?" John went to the bathroom and came back with a bucket.

What does he needs that for? Surely he didn't plan to clean now.

"Of course not!" Sherlock replied.

"Do you think you'd be able to warn me if you realise you'll throw up?"

This was not funny any more! But John would not bug him like this when he would make jokes, would he?… No, he usually knew where the boundaries were. Did John thought he was sick? Ridiculous.

"Don't be ridiculous, one does not throw up without a reason, and there is no reason here."

But then, from the distance, some part of him noticed he knew _that_ feeling. He had been sick when he was a child and thrown up back then, but he had stored that feeling so far away his mind had not even thought about looking for something like that.

But now he was grown up and he'd manage to make it go away. He concentrated on forcing the feeling down.

It kept reappearing and he pushed it back again.

But it became harder by the minute.

"Yes, I did throw up before." Though he was not sure he could remember what it had felt like before it happened. He decided not allowing the idea to enter his mind would keep it away more efficiently.

How could John be so rude to assume he was too pathetic to have control over his body?

Then the doctor started touching his stomach and suddenly another long forgotten feeling rose in him.

It felt like a cork of soft plasticine - with all colours mixed, leaving a lot of grey but with some swirling colours in between - trapped under his breastbone.

The feeling and the fight to keep it in control exploded and floored all other sensations. Then his mind went blank with an overload of ugly sensations.

He surfaced again when the piercing smell of vomit assaulted his nostrils. It made him retch again and again.

Somewhere in between gasping for air and trying not to choke he snesed John was still with him.

Distress rose with that knowledge.

John was not supposed to be incommoded with his transport's malfunctions.

It was rude to let him see this, wasn't it? John might be angry with him later.

Get away from him as fast as possible. Dispose the signs of this embarrassing lack of control as fast as possible… Make a retreat, showing shame would probably be the right social interaction.

But the disgusting smell made him vomit even more violently.

He had never thrown up into a bucket before, this was disgusting, he needed to move to the bathroom and puke into the toilet.

As soon as he could, he tried to get up, but John held him back and took the bucket.

No, this was disgusting!

He could not let John take care of his waste.

He felt mortified now… that did not happen often, but he knew that sharp feeling.

But his flatmate seemed neither angry nor unnerved.

Was he talking? John usually talked…

Sherlock wondered if he was confused, his mind was in disarray.

John showed odd behaviour… or was it emotions?

His sensations were also odd, he vaguely realised, the whole day was odd… it was peculiar enough to start a new entry in his the emotions-database.

John bugged him by asking for information, again and again… he _was_ talking… and then Sherlock ascertained he was actually answering… on autopilot.

Well, that had happened before… but why had he switched it _on_ in the first place… Right, he had been unnerved and wanted to be left alone… so that was the way.

Maybe, as a favour for bothering him with his problems, he should answer John honestly.

He tried, but the fact that the questions were about his sensations and how John's touch felt made it hard.

Not able to answer request… Missing input. John was right, there should be input.

He tried to find it, vaguely remembering that he had switched it off. He tried to recall if he was in his mind palace when he did.

He might have been, but it was dark… it was usually _not_ dark in there, it was _his_ mind. Not even dim light, the palace's normal state was sufficiently lighted everywhere… Well, sometimes he dimmed it, to make corners more cosy for retreat, but… that was a conscious decision.

Why was everything so wired and vague?

What was he doing?… Oh, yes, switch, search.

He went looking for it… but after a time wondered if he had placed it in some virtual refrigerator.

Was there even one?… Dumb question, of course there was one! It was in the labs.

But when he searched there: no switch anywhere…

Truth be told, he couldn't even remember what it looked like… Switches were usually mounted somewhere, or attached, or build in, weren't they?

John's touch on his stomach jerked his mind back to reality.

"Tell me where you're hurting."

"Eh… that might be a problem… I switched it off," Sherlock decided to inform the doctor.

"What?"

"I switched off the pain reception."

"How….? You can switch it off?"

"Not always and not fully and not all kinds of pain, but… yes."

"That's kind of odd, mate, you know that?"

"No."

"Switch it back on then."

"Switch is gone."

"Blimey… You're telling me you can manage your pain reception but misplaced the mechanism somehow?"

"Of course I can mange it, can't you?" That was odd. Every normal person surely could do this.

"Not to that degree."

"Maybe I classified the kind of pain wrong and now it is not received as pain," he theorised.

John stared at the ceiling, was he unnerved now, too?

"Okay, you try to find that switch while I examine you, alright?" John suggested and started touching him again. Sherlock tried to retreat into his mind palace to get away from the sensation of physical contact… and there was something else he had to do… search the switch.

"Hmmm," Sherlock muttered and drifted off.


	7. Chapter 7 - Day 2 – Sherlock's POV

**Chapter 7 **

**Day 2 – Saturday: Sherlock's POV**

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He woke up in the middle of the night, disoriented and hurting.

Half-formed thoughts rumbled through his mind, undirected and rough. He had thought being sick would feel like being hurt, but this was different. This was not just one or more spot aching, it was feeling miserable all over… not being able to spot the unwanted areas of his body, there were too many.

He felt extremely weak, even trembling, he was sure he wouldn't be able to stand upright.

Ghastly feeling, that one.

Before experiencing this he had been convinced that with the right mindset and enough will and control he'd manage to get up, no matter how sick he was, but he had to face now that this might not be completely true.

He felt betrayed.

How could he be so weak to lose control over his body?

He was disgusted by his inability to make his transport follow his will. Feeling shaky kind of hurt his mind. Cold silver steely feeling on his skull's surface.

Shame.

Fragile.

Need to hide.

Ashamed.

He drifted back to sleep.

.

In the early morning the runs started, which was even more disgusting.

John brought tea and he felt dizzy.

When he closed his eyes he couldn't figure out which direction the sky would be; and he ran into the door once or twice while heading for the bathroom.

Since usually where the ceiling was there was also the sky, he just needed to remember that and orientation would come back.

He tried hard, but had to find out soon that his body ignored the knowledge, he got another bruise on his sheen from colliding with the bed.

John brought more tea, for what he was quite grateful, he was indeed thirsty. But it didn't do him the favour to stay inside him very long.

Drinking… too much effort, cancel action.

He went to the bathroom and back to bed, dozed, to the bathroom, to the bed, again and again.

…and again.

Actions blurred into each other.

.

Some time later, when he came back from the bathroom once more, he puked into his bin.

Not much, but he felt ashamed, for it had happened… and for the misconception that he was finished when he had left the bathroom… and for not being able to get up and bring the stinky thing outside.

He tried to sleep, but he couldn't, the taste in his mouth and the smell from the bin were bothering him.

Finally, he managed to stand up, he needed to get the bin into the kitchen or better the bathroom, it smelled bad there already.

But when he had struggled out of the sheets, something shifted underneath him and the next moment he fell back against the bed, which at least slowed down his fall.

With an ungracious noise he landed on the floor, hip first.

Pain rushed through his body... and it seemed as if it triggered more agony, uncovered those aches he had only distantly felt before, increasing intensity.

He gasped for air when he felt his intestines revolt and his stomach cramp. His head was throbbing…

Had all those growing pains been there before, dimmed?… And why were they gaining momentum now?

For now he wasn't able to go anywhere, though after some long moments he managed to sit upright against the bed. He needed to pause a bit, try again in a minute.

Fighting the new unveiled sensations he felt exhaustion try to overwhelm him.

This was nasty… a sharp memory pierced his mind while he slowly drifted back to sleep – this was not as bad as withdrawal but getting closer by the hour.

Wait… _Was_ this in fact a kind of poisoning?

He was barely aware that his autopilot instructed his body to lay down on the floor when he slipped into sleep again.

.

He woke up and it felt as if hours had passed, still on the floor… The smell of stomach acid in his head and nose…

Needs to go… The smell needs to go or it will make him puke again!

Slowly he managed to sit up after he had finally realised _he_ needed to get rid of it, it would not vanish by itself fast enough.

A wave of black spots washed over him and he hissed in discomfort, but at least he managed to prevent to black out.

Carefully, he made it over to the bin and with clumsy and slow fingers to close the plastic bag with a knot… Leastwise keep the smell inside.

He stumbled back to his bed.

How many days had he been in here?

Where was his phone?

He didn't know if it was day or night any longer.

He didn't know how often he had been in the bathroom.

…or how often he had thrown up,

…or why the world was like it was,

…or why the flat had only two rooms left… He remembered that there was blackness were the kitchen should be… Which was quite intriguing when he thought about it… but he was too tired to explore it back then when he had seen it and had moved back to his room.

He didn't know where John was and reality had become kind of abstract during the past hours.

It was all so dull… but took so much effort!

Not only the flat had reduced, his existence had reduced to his room and the bathroom, too.

Endless repetitions.

Was John gone?

How many days ago had he seen him last?

Did he need to convince Mycroft look for John?

He found his phone on the bedside table, thank god the darkness had not taken it.

…had it taken John?

It lasted an eternity but finally he managed to write a few words. Rationality returned… and… but… maybe he should text John first, before sending a search party.

Maybe John was out to work or do shopping… or some of those odd things people did… that was if shops and the outside world really existed any longer.

He was not sure how to distinguish between reality and dreams and being half conscious and drifting through the emptiness of his mind.

He saved the text and typed another one for John.

'Did I misplace or lost you? Do I need sending a search party? SH'

He stumble out of the bed in a hurry to reach the bathroom, again. The phone landed on the table with a hard 'clonk'.

.

He dry heaved into the toilet, this was even worse than vomiting.

Maybe drinking water before puking would make it less ugly, remember to drink next time.

Gasping for air he found himself leaned against the tub, black pressure on his forehead.

…and then John came in, thank god… he hadn't stored him somewhere never to be found again.

And John was even kind to him, even though he was probably a messy sight. He helped him back to bed and didn't complain about him being a nuisance. His flatmate was almost always kind, he was different than all the other doctors he had met when he was a child.

John rested his hand on his face. He knew that feeling. Mummy had done that when he was little… and when he was sick… but he was bigger now.

Sherlock vaguely noticed he slipped back into his childhood memories of being sick

…or hurt,

…distress…

He tried to shove away the memories that came up, they were kind of… painful…? … Unwanted anyway.

He got lost trying to flee.

There were people claiming to be doctors, and their only intention seemed to be to call him a liar, and then tell Mummy lies about him and no one made his pain go away, and no one helped him and they only caused more pain with needles and other things.

Maybe John wasn't a doctor? He had never done such things… No, he was a friend, he had said that, hadn't he?… He must be okay then.

.

He had fallen off his bike and then been taken to a doctor, at first he had thought the doctor would help him but then the man had told Mummy how he was a liar. He had protested and choked down the urge to cry because this was _so_ ghastly. He was stunned, he knew other children could be mean, but grown-ups were supposed to be clever and especially doctors should be!

They were supposed to _help_ hurting people, weren't they? Why wasn't he helped? What had he done wrong?

The man was mean, not only lying about him lying, but also lying about him not being hurt.

When they were home again he had hidden in his room, Mycroft came and he asked him if he had got it wrong and doctors weren't supposed to heal people. Mycroft failed to give a good explanation and said he hadn't got it wrong, doctors _were_ supposed to help.

He remembered more doctors and more pain and being accused of faking symptoms… He didn't want to remember and he didn't want to be a kid any longer.

Having chickenpox wasn't nice… He was twelve. But he was able to reduce the itching to a minimum by trying to switch it off, like he had learned to do with the pain before… Then he passed the sickness to Mycroft, who was pretty bugged to get a children's illness at his age. But when they watched TV for days and ate ice-cream and played all games they had at least six times, it was fun. They played deducing sometimes, that was fun, too.

.

When someone called for him and shook his shoulder he was sure it must be Mummy, but it was John… What was John doing in his childhood?… A few seconds later he realised he was in Baker Street and neither John nor him were in his childhood.

"John? Uh, glad I didn't lost you somewhere."

"Glad you're back with me."

"Back?" Where had he been? Time travelling was not yet invented.

"You were a bit out of it, maybe dehydration, what did you drink during the past three days?"

He listed the liquids and their amounts.

"Jesus, Sherlock this isn't enough at all! No wonder you're dehydrated. We need to get this under control. I'll get some fluids, back in a minute, don't go to sleep."

Hm, sleep would be nice. When had he last slept? Felt like ages ago.

John helped him drink, he had already started to drift off when panic hit him.

Will his life be like this from now on? Will it stay like this because nobody was there to help, again?

"This will go away. I'll get some meds and you'll feel better tomorrow. Sleep a bit now. It'll be better in the morning."

Why was John so kind?… sleep took his questions away.

…

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_A/N:_

**_RealLife-hint (don't read this paragraph if it would make the story less good for you):_**

_Since there was some feedback about the switching off the pain and problems with uttering where it is and how it feels: I'm not making this up, I'm simply describing it, my pain reception works similar, the problems and confusion around the problems aren't made up either. I think Sherlock would not behave as he does (especially in HLV) if he wasn't able to manage pain._

.

_Reviews and/or feedback would be lovely._


	8. Chapter 8 - Day 3 - Sunday, 2:30 am

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

.

_Thank you for all who wrote a review or a comment, you are great!_

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**Chapter 8 **

**Day 3 - Sunday, 2:30 in the morning**

John sat in the living room, unmoving, the past hour's events kind of haunting him. Sherlock had experienced the bad sides of being a very intelligent child: understanding more than half the grown-ups around him and being punished for lying, just because they didn't understand or thought a child could have so much insight… To be told he was dumb because he asked too many questions must have also severely hurt him.

Overall the detective's childhood must have been difficult. Constantly bored, not challenged enough, probably scolded for questioning all and everything, being constantly misunderstood, and punished for being a liar when he only described what he sensed, felt, observed or deduced. He probably had no friends his age, not even later in his teens or at the University as far as the doctor knew.

John felt a rush of sympathy for the child Sherlock, that was harmed by not being listened to. It made him quite sad when he realised the impact this experiences might have on a child. When his stomach clenched, he wondered if Sherlock had infected him or if this was a reaction to the things he had just understood.

Experiencing not to be helped, when hurt or sick - although doctors _had_ the knowledge to do so - because no one understood was a sinister world, especially for a child. As he knew his friend Sherlock would have tried harder and harder but had presumably been told he was wrong and maybe even get punished for insisting.

At a certain age he must have figured out the was the possibility that grown ups were wrong, and tried to help himself, but there was not much one could do with a broken bone of course.

No doubt this would shatter trust in other individuals, and doctors especially… No wonder Sherlock was so suspicious about people in general and several kinds of professions.

Being constantly misunderstood and told you are wrong by individuals who should know better.

Even as a child the consultant sometimes must have had more knowledge about certain topics than people three times his age, who believed they knew everything and therefore were sure a young person must be wrong. Sherlock being a know-it-all and always needing to have the last line had surely added to the problem.

Sherlock's way to tell what he knew was often seen as showing-off… well, maybe he was guilty of that sometimes, but most of the time people were offended by being told what they should know, or because they didn't know.

Peoples' reactions might have first lead to disorientation and finally to the loss of faith in humanity from a child's perspective. Especially when not understanding the human nature concerning making oneself look better than others, or lie about one's mistakes, or being to gutless to admit flaws and failure… Sherlock was not good in understanding the meaner aspects of human's nature, he had stored them and learned to recognise them but John had the impression he didn't really understand those. This probably had hurt him quite frequently as a child, in addition to the mean aspects themselves.

John tried to remember if Sherlock had ever been mean with him around, sure, Sherlock was rude, honest, frustrated, grumpy, direct, brutally accurate, sometimes teasing or insulting, sometimes harder than he should be when trying to cause a reaction, but none of all those things were because he wanted to hurt or be mean to another being. If he insulted someone on purpose it was usually a _reaction_ but not him who started it, or he wanted to provoke a reaction, which was rude but effective.

Sherlock was all those things not only with other people, but also with himself. This fact made John so sure it was not happening with the intention to hurt. The detective was as hard with himself as with everybody else. In fact, more than twice as hard. He expected much less from others than from himself. He must have learned that as a kid, too.

Some time ago Sherlock had explained to him that his communication was happening in a place far away from normal people and that most individuals were not able to even enter this 'room'. Some were at least able to realise the room was there and see into it through a window, but drew the wrong conclusions from their limited insight. Their own desire to interpret and categorise things, making it all wrong, and Sherlock was the one suffering from their superficial behaviour and resulting 'lies'.

Back then John had listened to the description, but when he was honest at that time he was the one who had only stored the information but didn't understand it, now it became much clearer what Sherlock had tried to describe. The doctor wondered where he himself was in this scheme. He sincerely hoped he was able to stand and watch through a door, instead of a window.

This was kind of horrible.

He wished he could help Sherlock to replace the bad experiences with new and good ones, but if it was possible at all, this would be a lot of work and needed a lot of trust.

Was he up to that?

Could he care for another being like that, still suffering from his PTSD?

Because when he was honest this would be kind of therapy and he was not a therapist. With this, there was almost no room for mistakes. Sherlock would take every hesitation, every rejection as a proof for his earlier experiences. To break this circle would be hard and needed absolute trust.

Was he able to do this? Had he Sherlock's trust?… No, not to such a level… at least not yet. Well, he had more than anybody else, nobody else would be able to start this… Would Sherlock even let him in?

Maybe it was already happening.

Sherlock let him in far more than anyone else, granted him even touch sometimes… John already though of them as good friends… and maybe that was the thing Sherlock needed. Restoring the trust in humanity was probably a lost cause but enabling him to ask for help and then get some John could try.

His phone rang.

Mycroft.

He picked up.

"John?"

"Yeah."

"Are you well?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Sherlock sent me a message telling me he 'misplaced' you. I texted you twice. You didn't respond, so I decided to call."

"I'm fine. Sorry, didn't check for messages."

"My brother sounded kind of… _out of it_… Did we miss a danger night?"

"No. He's sick. I'm not sure what caused it yet, but the options are food poisoning or stomach bug."

"Oh, thank goodness… I was really worried."

"He actually is… kind of… out of it. At first, I wondered if he was delirious but is was caused by dehydration."

"Feel free to tell me if you need any medical equipment. Taking him to a hospital might not be an option."

"Ta, I might come back to that later… I have some questions, though…"

"Go ahead."

"… concerning Sherlock's childhood."

"Oh. Go on, then."

"Did Sherlock break his ribs when he was a child? The incident might be related to a bike…"

"Did he tell you about that?"

"No, at least I think he wasn't really conscious at the time… He was kind of… half asleep or dreaming."

"He was eight, he came home and told us he was knocked over when riding his bike back home and feared he had some damaged ribs. He was taken to a doctor, but the man diagnosed that the child was lying and had heard of broken ribs in the telly and now used it as an excuse. He didn't do anything to help at all, not even x-rayed him. He was an idiot."

"Yeah, I think this was the incident."

"Well, back then our mother unfortunately listened to the doctor, and Sherlock was scolded instead of being treated… Some time later when an X-ray of the torso was performed, due to something else, it was discovered there were two ribs that had been broken in the past. The incident was very unfortunate, and although I tried to explain to Sherlock that the stupidity of one man didn't mean all doctors were incompetent his trust was betrayed quite severely," Mycroft explained.

"Shit," John murmured.

"There is another problem. Sherlock seems to have problems with the line between 'something feels not good' and 'something hurts'. He wouldn't say something hurts when others would, which means he's kind of pain-resistant, has always been. So, when a doctor pressed a spot and asked if it hurt Sherlock said 'no' because the doctor didn't asked if it felt 'not good' and Sherlock answered truthfully from his point of view."

"Okay… And then the doctor made a wrong diagnosis because the spots that should hurt didn't, according to the child… There was another thing with a gone-wrong operation and him having infections for years."

"That is correct… Enduring that for a pretty long period made him figure out how to even lower his pain reception or switch it off entirely. Especially because he was repeatedly told that he was not in pain. The discrepancy between 'pain' and 'no pain' became even bigger," the older Holmes sighed at the end of that sentence.

"The results must have been devastating," John assumed.

"Yes, he lost a lot of his trust in all his sense's input and had a hard time getting it back later. He avoided speaking about any kind of sensations for years, too. The fact that his senses are highly sensitive and are causing him pain on a daily basis didn't do him any good. Since his surroundings didn't share or understood his descriptions - and to what depths and levels he was able to sense - made it even harder. He was pretty frustrated. I was able to explain at least some things to him, though my sense were much less problematic or intense… Sherlock was always eager to gather background knowledge and he listened to me. I'm really surprised he talked about this… it's kind of a sore spot in his history."

"As I said, he's out of it and I need to know if he was just dreaming, or hallucinating, or if those were in fact real memories."

"They are memories."

"Got that already. Were there more incidents where Sherlock was the baddie for telling the truth?"

"Yes, and to my shame I have to admit I'm guilty of not standing up for him some of the times I knew he was right."

"You were... how old… fourteen… fifteen back then? You were a kid, too, it was not your responsibility," John started.

"I did see it, and this should have made it my responsibility. I failed him, John… several times… and after I understood what being misunderstood did to him I decided to never fail him again… But it was too late and I fear he… had a rough time."

John sighed, "You really _are_ worried about him, aren't you?"

"I believe I already said that at our first meeting."

"I know… But back then _I_ was the one misunderstanding what was in front of me."

"John, he trusts you… He has never trusted anyone like this in his life. I need to make sure you get everything you need to keep that trust safe from any harm, do you understand what is at stake here?"

"You're saying this is too important to go wrong?" John wanted to be sure.

"Correct. I'm aware this is a heavy burden, but since I you are already shouldering it for almost a year now… and you seem not to classify it as a _burden_… and also seem to be willing to be a friend to my brother..."

"I am, Mycroft," John interrupted him, "And there is no doubt about our friendship. It's just hard to be left in the dark with several aspects of his past sometimes."

Mycroft was silent for some long moments, then seemed to have made a decision.

"You can ask me everything you want to know about his childhood, if you think information your friendship would profit from it… Though with _some_ things I will ask for his permission before telling you."

"Thanks… I'm glad for help with this… and your trust. Sorry, if I was a bit… careful in the beginning."

"It's quite understandable, doctor. I would've doubted you if you had done what I asked for, especially for money, to be honest."

John laughed. Mycroft and Sherlock were so much alike… and yet so different. He could almost feel Mycroft roll his eyes about his amusement.

"He had a rough night. If he isn't better in the morning I need to consider other causes and might need a lab… maybe Molly Hooper is on duty."

"John, I'd feel much easier if you could get some samples and hand it over to Anthea as soon as possible."

John raised his eyebrows.

What was Mycroft afraid of?

"Any reasons for your wariness?"

"Sherlock is a pro in hiding any kind of distress. As you already understood he can't process his sensations sometimes and if he doesn't _want_ to perceive or process them… We need to keep a close eye on this. His dehydration might be more advanced than we think. He might have been dehydrated before he got sick. So please examine him thoroughly… and besides… Sherlock _doesn't_ get sick…"

This time John laughed out even louder. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"You misunderstand me. He has no experience with being sick. Whenever Sherlock's whole school managed to suffer from a virus, Sherlock was the only one not affected… Whenever the whole family was vomitting from something I brought home from school, he seemed to ignore it… What I'm saying is, in ninety-eight percent of those events Sherlock did _not_ catch it, well, neither did my father but that's something else. I don't know how, but he also managed to evade every childhood diseases except chicken pocks, and that was quite late, when he was twelve or thirteen… He's probably quite naïve when it comes to describing things, even if he wants to."

"I took a sample when he puked for the first time."

"Foresightful. I'll send Anthea then, you need something else? Meds?"

"I'd like to try to get him hydrated by drinking but it's… well, if it doesn't work, it might be better to treat him with an IV."

"You have those at home?"

"No."

"I'll send some equipment, just in case… Maybe I should also get some general medical supplies… If you don't need it, store it for later use. If he fights you… you might need some…"

"Do you _really_ think such drastic methods are necessary?" John interrupted, a bit surprised.

"I doubt my brother will be able to utter his body's needs… If he's dehydrated, please don't hesitate to get fluids into him via IV, sedate him if you need. I trust you to make the right medical decision."

"I'm sure such a thing would worsen his opinion about doctors, but I understand the point. That option will be a last resort," John frowned.

Had he underestimated the urgency of the situation?

"Okay, I'll send her over with everything you need. She'll be there within the hour. Don't hesitate to call if you need something else."

"Yeah, thank you. I'll do my best."

"I know, John. Thank you. I feel a lot easier since I know my brother is not alone in that flat any longer… and since I know he has a… friend."

John didn't know what to say.

"Good night, Doctor."

"Night."

Mycroft hung up and John stared at his mobile for several moments.

Had he ever had a conversation with Mycroft that was so lengthy?

He wondered if Anthea would be at the door before he was able to raise from his armchair.

Better get some fluids into Sherlock now.

…

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…

_A/N:_

_Constructive criticism is appreciated. Please review. _


	9. Chapter 9 - Day 3 - Sunday night

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

….

* * *

….

**Chapter 9**

Sherlock drank another mug of stirred stale ginger ale without really waking up. This and the last mug had stayed down, which hopefully meant he was finally getting better.

John packed the samples he had taken earlier according to regulations. If this was contagious there was no need to endanger anybody else.

Afterwards he returned to his flatmate's room to check on him again.

The sick man was sleeping, neither having bad dreams nor looking as if he was going to be sick.

Some moments later John stood in the kitchen, exhausted and not sure what he should do next, he heard a soft knock on the front door downstairs.

How respectful not to use the door bell.

A pleasantly smiling and perfectly styled Anthea stood before him when he opened the door, though a large emergency backpack over her shoulder, a large red medical bag in her hand, and a plastic shopping bag kind of spoiled her professional appearance.

"Keep a distance, no need to risk infection," he tiredly informed her.

"In here is everything you need," she handed him the bags and put the backpack down, "You have samples for me?"

John tried to smile nicely in return, but knew he was pale and looked as worn out as he was, he probably failed completely at smiling at all.

He handed over the professionally wrapped plastic containers in a large envelope.

"Are you alright, John?" she asked carefully while straightening her costume, "You look sick, too. Do you need assistance?"

"Just tired, thanks."

She nodded politely and headed back to the waiting limousine.

John wondered what kind of 'assistance' she might have meant. Sending over a nurse or helping herself?

Laden with the new equipment he closed the door and went up the stairs, he was indeed feeling slightly sick, but was sure he was just stressed with the whole thing.

When he opened the bags on the kitchen table, he smiled.

The medical bag was a fully equipped rescue bag - the kind ambulance crews carry - it had the size of a medium travelling bag. Might become handy in other situations, too.

But John decided he'd better remove several medications and store them seperately. No need for them to be found during another 'drug bust'… or Sherlock wasting them for experiments.

The bag should be stored in the wardrobe later, where it was easy to find, together with the backpack, which contained even more emergency stuff, customised for their situation though... There were IVs to fight dehydration and several meds for this kind of illnesses.

Great, Mycroft had thought of it all.

He peeked into the plastic bag and grinned. Someone had been shopping. There were several medical isotonic drinks, some fresh bread, cheese, milk and… Grappa? He looked closer.

What was that supposed to mean? He found a note on the bottle:

'Our father used to drink one of those whenever anyone puked, he stated it would kill all the germs before he got infected. It worked, whenever someone got a bug in our family, he didn't (well, most of the times Sherlock managed to not get them, too… without this 'remedy' I might want to point out) but our father managed not to get a single one. Hope this will do the same for you, good luck, John.'

John smiled, he had met Mycroft several times since he first 'kidnapped' him. That was the only time John had been alone with him, at every other meeting Sherlock was there and they were constantly quarrelling.

The call they had half an hour ago was the first time Mycroft and John had really talked. He saw a whole new and different side of the older Holmes, who was really caring for his brother. Sherlock seemed not too eager to let him, though. Therefore Mycroft had obviously decided to do it in the background, maybe hoping that Sherlock wouldn't realise it, or hoping he'd accept it easier this way. Kind of a passive way to help Sherlock by helping John to take care of him.

He needed to treat Sherlock's dehydration, as fast as possible. He knew he should have pushed it earlier but he was afraid Sherlock would throw it up immediately if he went to fast… starting an IV line was still not the right option. His flatmate was just starting to show the tiniest bit of trust in him as a doctor… He couldn't jeopardise this by adding an invasive medical procedure to this fragile trust, and especially not in his bedroom, which needed to keep the status as a safe place.

Maybe - when trust had grown in the future - things like that could be taken into consideration, but not yet. Which meant: back to drinking fluids, and he'd wake him this time to examine him.

John filled a cup with the isotonic drink, fetched two throw pillows and some off the pills from the bag and headed for Sherlock's room.

The consultant was fast asleep and he reached out to encircle his wrist, pulse still slow.

"Sherlock, wake up, you need to drink this."

His friend didn't move. He placed the mug on the bedside table and the pillows on the end of the bed.

"Come on," he gently shook his shoulder.

Suddenly Sherlock jerked awake, sucking in air in distress and trying to sit up immediately.

John reached for him in fear he might fall off the bed in disorientation.

"Easy. You're okay."

He listed to one side for a moment, then straightened and stared up at John. He had held his breath but now inhaled a forced slow and deep breath, obviously trying to hide his distress. His face was a mask and two breaths later he was awake enough to realise the doctor was holding his upper arm to stabilise him.

"Le' me go," he tried to shift to get more distance.

With his free hand John placed the pillows behind the other man's back.

"Lean back against," John asked quietly, observing Sherlock's behaviour.

But he didn't move.

"You need to take these and drink to stay hydrated… You'll feel better soon," he held out the pills in one hand and the mug with the other.

"Won't stay down."

"It will, try it."

"I'm not 'p for another round o' vomiting yet, leave me alone," Sherlock slurred, clearly not himself.

"Sherlock, take these… Come on… Open up," John urged, fully aware that this meant Sherlock was getting worse. He didn't cooperate, he was out of it, eyes scampering through the room. John would never make him swallow the pills like this, not an option. He returned to the kitchen and dissolved the medication in the liquid, then returned with a towel.

"Drink."

Sherlock's hadn't moved, but his eyes were closed now.

He gently rested the rim of the mug against Sherlock's lips. To John's surprise some automatism kicked in and his flatmate lifted his head and started to drink.

"Slowly, that's it… You'll feel better soon."

John paused after a few sips to give his stomach time to adjust.

It took some time but Sherlock managed to drink the whole mug and then sank back into the pillows, appearing to be totally spent.

When John put the mug down on the night table he frowned, it was smelling bad in here… like vomit.

"Sherlock, did you throw up into the bed?"

He slowly took away the duvet and searched the bed.

Everything fine… until his eyes fell onto Sherlock's shin, the pyjama trousers' leg had been shoved up by movements and bared the skin. There was a large red and blue bruise, maybe a few hours old.

He covered him again.

"Sherlock, did you fall?"

No reaction.

"Did you puke in here?"

The addressed man blinked, so he was hearing his questions?

"I need to make sure you are okay, can I take a look at you?"

When Sherlock once more didn't react the doctor went to the kitchen to get the medical bag. Moments later he was back and placed it on the ground next to the bed.

He frowned, the smell of puke getting into his nostrils again, he started searching the room… and found the bin with the closed waste bag. He cursed silently and brought the thing into the bathroom.

"I'll examine you, relax," he addressed the still figure. He gently lifted Sherlock's eyelids and looked into his eyes. The other man frowned but otherwise allowed it to happen.

The former army doctor listened to his lungs and his heart, everything as expected for a patient in his condition.

He shoved the duvet closer to Sherlock's hip to have room to sit down and take his BP. When Sherlock flinched, it made John's inner red alerts start.

"Hey, you need to wake up fully for a bit and tell me where you hurt!" he took the duvet away once more.

"Go away," Sherlock mumbled, half asleep.

"No, I need to know where you hurt."

"I don't know… 'nd I don't care."

No way of getting answers this way, the hard way then.

John pressed three fingers into the side of Sherlock's hip, who flinched once more.

"All right…"

He needed to do this fast, Sherlock would not allow it as soon as he understood what was happening.

John tried to roll him onto his side - easier said than done, Sherlock looked limp but he wasn't. He was tense all over.

With a few fast but gentle movements John turned him, away from the pillows and himself, then dragged down the side of the pants, gladly they had an elastic ribbon at the waistline.

"Blimey, Sherlock!"

Another large bruise went from the outside of his hip joint down the upper half of the thigh. It didn't look dangerous and he let the fabric slip over it again.

Gently, he pressed into the flesh around the outside of the joint. Sherlock's only reaction to the whole thing was a voiceless grunt when he pressed harder into the side of the bone, so probably no further injuries there. But the reaction was far less than it should be to this amount of pressure.

The doctor removed the pillows from the bed, rolled Sherlock back into a prone position and covered him fully again. Once more he checked his patient's temperature.

Definitely getting worse. Sherlock had no longer a raised temperature, he had a fever.

"Did you fall?"

Sherlock either ignored him or was too much out of it.

"Come on, Sherlock, wake up!" he ordered, and tapped his cheek.

Sherlock stirred and tried to evade the touch.

"That's it, come on. Open your eyes."

The other man did, and blinked slowly.

"Can you hear me?"

Sherlock nodded slowly.

"Did you fall?"

"When?… I fell sev'al times during the past thirty years, could'ou be more specific?"

John rolled his eyes.

"Did you fall since you puked for the first time on Friday?"

"I don't know…" Sherlock frowned and appeared to honestly try to remember.

"Did you wake up on the ground since Friday?"

"Maybe…"

"Do you hurt in some way that feels more like an injury than sickness?"

Sherlock frowned, "I don't know."

"Okay… Drink this, you need liquids," he once more aided his friend to drink the isotonic beverage.

"You want something else? A book? Your laptop? Listen to a CD?" John doubted Sherlock would be able to concentrate on reading or anything else.

"M'violin," Sherlock informed.

"You want to play?… You can barely sit."

"No, I want it _in here_."

John wondered what this was about but stood up and brought the case with the instrument, he placed it on a chair on the far side of the bed so the detective would not bump into it running to the bathroom.

"Okay like that?"

Sherlock nodded, "Open?"

John opened the case but didn't take out the violin.

"Thanks," Sherlock closed his eyes and John saw him drift back into sleep.

Now, what was that about?

Back in the living room John sat down on the couch. He hadn't heard Sherlock fall. His friend had kept the door shut when the runs had started, since the term privacy was usually _not_ one of Sherlock's concerns John suspected it was shame or something similar.

He would keep the door open from now on, the detective's pride was already bruised, no need to get any more bruises on his body, damage control. So if Sherlock would make any noises that might indicate he was getting up John would be at his side. The detective would be pissed about that.

The doctor felt exhausted and his stomach was uneasy. Probably, he just needed some sleep, too. He set the alarm of his mobile to ring in an hour. First priority remained to get as much liquids into Sherlock as possible. He had indeed not seen the dehydration fast enough, in a hospital he'd already have started an IV line but he wanted to try this orally for at least two or three hours until considering that again.

He crawled under the blanket and slipped into sleep almost immediately.

.

John got up ever hour and helped Sherlock to sip more tea or some other drink.

The detective was just passive. He said nothing, he didn't complain, he didn't refuse, his facial expression was a mask, showing nothing, he didn't even move without John's guidance.

And it became more and more creepy over the night. The doctor tried to talk to Sherlock repeatedly but could not make him react.

The fever was not getting better and when John probed Sherlock's abdomen again in the early hours of the morning his patient also failed to respond. He tried to pinch his hand, but the resulting flinch was minute.

Sherlock seemed to have switched off his reception almost completely, like on auto-pilot. Well, at least he was drinking and the vomiting seemed to have come to an end. At this pace the dehydration should be under control by lunchtime.

John went to the couch to take another nap.

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_A/N:_

_Feedback welcome._


	10. Chapter 10 - Sunday morning, 6:30 am

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

_Thank you so much for your reviews and your support :)._

_So, here's another product of another sleepless night. Hope you like it._

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**Chapter 10**

**Sunday morning, 6:30**

John woke suddenly.

There had been a noise… he listened… keeping his eyes shut to concentrate.

Had Sherlock called for him?

Nothing… no more noises.

He flapped the blanket back and sat up, trying to blink away the sleep. Sherlock needed to drink some more water.

Before he could do anything else there was a noise from his right and John jerked because it was so very near.

Right there, in front of the window to his right was Sherlock, standing with his back towards him.

How had he managed to get up?

"Sherlock?… Shit!" John panted, trying to catch his breath from the surprise.

Sherlock just stood there, like a statue.

John rose and stepped towards him, "Sherlock?"

"Hmm?"

"What are you doing out of bed?"

"I needed to make sure… the living room's'till here…"

John rounded him, he'd never had thought it to be possible that his sick friend would be able to get up, let alone walk into the living room, and what he was saying was complete nonsense.

"How are you doing?"

The doctor managed to bring himself in a position from where he could look into Sherlock's face.

Sherlock didn't look good. His eyes were closed and he was trembling badly, his skin white as a sheet.

John carefully reached out but did not touch him.

"Sherlock?… Are you with me?"

His flatmate opened his eyes and blinked slowly. After some moments his gaze started to wander around and another few seconds later it finally focussed on the former soldier.

"Oh, John… Glad you're still here, too."

John frowned. Why wouldn't he be here?

"Ta… Come on, sit down," he took the sick man's arm and tried to lead him to the sofa he had just vacated.

Was that an utterance of gratitude or affection?

Sherlock moved on wobbly legs but stopped in front of the seat, searching the room for something.

"Where's Mrs Hudson?"

"She's away for the weekend with…"

"Will she come back?" Sherlock interrupted.

"Yes, yes, she will… What is this about?"

"I…" Sherlock stammered, "I was…"

"Sit down."

Sherlock shook his head.

"You need to drink, sit down."

Sherlock frowned and then swayed.

"For god's sake, sit down."

John grabbed him by the upper arms just in time, he didn't need to drag Sherlock, his knees gave way. The doctor barely managed to direct him towards the seating in time. His friend slumped backwards hard and John cursed silently, barely managing to brace his head from colliding with the backrest.

Sherlock's eyes had closed and his breathing was shallow. When John felt his pulse, it was fast and his skin hot.

He patted his cheek, "Sherlock, come on, open your eyes… Sherlock!"

He hurried to the kitchen, dampened a towel and poured some more of that glucose-electrolyte solution into a mug.

When he returned Sherlock hadn't moved, he was still sitting slumped backward on the sofa.

"Sherlock, open your eyes for me," John once more patted his cheek.

"Hmm…"

"That's it, come on, all the way."

It took several moments until the other man finally blinked and managed to look at him, he immediately sat up straighter when he realised the doctor was watching him.

"Here, drink this."

Sherlock looked exhausted and not convinced drinking was a good idea.

But he accepted the mug, though with a haunted expression, then took a careful sip.

John had expected he'd refuse.

Then suddenly, the consultant turned even paler than he already was. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, his head hung low, the mug circled by his hands between his knees.

"Are you gonna be sick?"

No reaction.

"You okay?"

John waited no longer, he went for the bucket.

When he came back Sherlock hadn't moved and he placed the red bin between his feet.

The detective made several gulping noises that sounded too much like hard effort for John's liking but shoved the thing away with his feet.

John knelt down in front of him.

"If you need to puke, don't hold it back."

"Drinkin' tha' stuff was too much an effort to… loose it without a fight," Sherlock whispered hoarsely, "Besides the colour pierced my brain with green needles."

His hands were trembling so much John took the mug out of his hands, afraid it would slip out off them. Sherlock was talking nonsense and it was disturbing.

He felt desperation because he didn't know how to help his friend, he was aware something must happen soon, but he was afraid to step over boundaries.

"John… You're a doctor…"

"Yes?" John asked, a bit hesitantly, wondering what would come next.

"I… I need a favour," Sherlock's voice was trembling too, now.

"Yes…?"

"I can't… drink this… any more."

"You're dehydrated… you _need_ liquids."

"Yes… You're a doctor, there _are_ other ways…"

"I don't understand… Are you asking me for...?"

"…intravenous fluids," the detective finished.

This was the last thing John had expected, but the logical and medical choice.

"I…," Sherlock gulped once more, "My chest and throat are… hurting from fighting to keep the liquids down."

John listened carefully, alarms ringing. Sherlock was in fact speaking about how he felt and showing his weakness… and he had just asked for _help_.

"I…Yes, you really need fluids. I didn't want to invade your privacy like this, unasked…"

"I… am asking for this… Privacy is nothing I'm really concerned about when it comes to you, you wouldn't live 'ere if youwere not included in my… privacy… I thought that was… quite obvious."

"Your definitions are kind of unique - I need to learn some more about them later. I also didn't want to associate negative things to me being here and being a doctor after what I learned about your childhood experiences with doctors," John thought it best to be honest, and despite what he had thought a few moments before the other man seemed to be quite clear in his thought processes.

"Who told you abou' those?" Sherlock lifted his head slightly and peered through his messy hair.

"You did."

"…Really?" Sherlock frowned, his eyes glassy and displaying his distress, "You won't bruise my mind by doing what a doctor does."

John frowned. What does that mean?…. Was he talking about pride or about being hurt in his childhood?

"Do you think you'll be able to tell me when you need to get up, so I can disconnect an IV line? I don't want you to get hurt by ripping it out."

Sherlock nodded.

"Yes… All right I want you to lie back down," John stood up and took Sherlock's shoulders, pushing him sideways. Sherlock followed the movement and lay down, head towards the windows, arduously lifting his legs onto the seat. John fetched the blanket and covered him.

"Try to relax, I'll get the stuff."

He fetched a wet towel and placed it on Sherlock's forehead, then went for the medical equipment.

When he came back a few minutes later with clean hands and the bag Sherlock's eyes were half closed and the towel was on the carpet.

John started the IV line, softly informing Sherlock of every move he made and waiting for signs of distress, but Sherlock was just passive observing every tiny action and movement of the doctor closely.

John hung the bag into the standard lamp with the provided hook, when he had adjusted the flow rate he injected an anti-nausea medication and a painkiller into the line.

The detective's temperature was still the same.

How the hell had Sherlock managed to get up?

The doctor had never ever expected him to be able to _walk_ into the living room, especially not silently… or even thought he would try.

Sherlock had appeared quite lucid when he made the request for intravenous liquids… but before that he seemed out off it. John wondered if the detective would remember that later. Always expect the unexpected.

"I need… something… else," Sherlock whispered, his gaze evading John's.

"What?… What is it?" John asked in a low voice.

"I… don't know…"

John frowned, "How does the need feel?"

"Empty…"

"Where is the emptiness?"

Was this another new territory he was invited to? John wondered.

"Back of my mind…"

John's frown deepened. Great description… he needed more clues.

"You mean in the back of your head?"

"No, could you listen… of my _mind_!"

"Okay… What is usually there?" John tried carefully.

"I don' know… Something hurts."

"Where exactly?"

"Navel… No… more like solar plexus."

John blew out air, this was quite confusing. His friend was obviously trying to explain a sensation.

"Sherlock, is the pain still…" before he could finish the sentence Sherlock squinted.

"What is it?"

"Hurts."

"I think your body is trying to tell you something… you need to relax, Sherlock. You're stiff as a board, you suffer from cramps and…"

"I don't know how to do that…"

"To do what?"

"Relaxation, the concept isn't really clear t'me…"

"Wait… you're telling me you don't know…"

"…how to do it, yes."

"Blimey…"

No wonder Sherlock didn't sleep well and tried to blend out his pains.

"How do you go to sleep without relaxing?"

"I have a technique…" Sherlock whispered.*

"Then use it now… Sleep," John took the wet towel and wiped his flatmate's face carefully. It was another gentle poking at one of Sherlock's boundaries: touch. He was relieved to see his friend accepted the care and didn't shove him away.

John kept it brief and then went to rinse the cloth with cold water.

When he came back a few minutes later Sherlock was in fact asleep, his eyes closed and his breathing deep and even.

Sherlock being sick was an insight in a world different from all patient's and doctor's POVs John had seen before, a surprising perspective and perception. This was a whole new thing, John had never heard of sickness been experienced like this… or being handled like this. And he surely hadn't expected to be asked for an intravenous line.

It was clear that it had been hard on the other man to ask, _why_ the doctor needed to find out later, but Sherlock was as pragmatic as ever.

This might be the right time to try a sip of that Grappa.

.

* * *

.

* _The technique how Sherlock gets into sleep is explained in more detail in my story 'The mystery of finding sleep'._

.

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...

_A/N:_

_Reviews appreciated._


	11. Chapter 11 - Sunday afternoon

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_This takes place somewhere after The Blind Banker and before The Great Game/Scandal in Belgravia (so before my story 'Lessons in Friendship 1 – A glimpse at PTSD') when John and Sherlock were living together just for a few months, and the friendship is rather young._

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

…

* * *

…

**Chapter 11 **

**Sunday afternoon**

John felt like he had been dozing for about ten minutes when a chirp from his phone woke him. He had fallen asleep in his armchair.

Where was the phone?

He stumbled over to the table to get it and opened the text message.

'Campylobacter' was the only thing it said.

The doctor stared at the word for more than ten seconds, then managed to look for the sender.

MH.

Okay.

Still half asleep he stood there, not moving for another five seconds.

Not good. Not a simple stomach bug then.

Campylobacter was a bacteria, causing first an infection and later enteritis. Nasty thing, though usually not harmful or life threatening. Even low bacteria concentration could cause an infection; often transmitted from pets or live stock to humans, by faeces or by contaminated food.

Highly contagious, and the treatment was mainly about keeping the patient hydrated and looking for more severe symptoms that might indicate a more dangerous bacteria-stem.

Great, just great!

For the first time John was no longer unsure about using the IV, in fact he was really relieved that he had started it. And that he had cleaned after Sherlock so thoroughly.

He blinked, his flatmate was still resting on the sofa, he hadn't moved since John had started the infusion.

Well, they'd need to find the source, but not _now_.

John decided not to touch any food in the flat and to nap until Sherlock woke up.

.

A soft voice woke him some time later.

"Sherlock?"

He opened his eyes. Someone stepped into the kitchen.

"Hm?" he muttered.

"John?"

Mrs Hudson's voice.

"Yeah, here."

"Oh, dear, what happened?" she had her hand over her mouth watching a pale and sleeping Sherlock.

"He got sick," John tried in a calm voice.

"Oh god, is it serious?" she stared at the IV bag and stepped closer.

"John? What's wrong?"

"Nonono… Stay there, and let me explain," John stopped her.

Mrs Hudson raised her eyebrows with a questioning look on her face.

The doctor decided it would be best if he kept her in the loop and started explaining what had happened.

About ten minutes later he finished, "So, you might want to be careful, no need to risk infection."

"I'll make do, John… You look like hell, have you been up all night?… He's gonna be okay, he always is. Don't worry!"

She was definitely trying to soothe _him_.

"Dear… I'll go downstairs and make you… us something to eat," Mrs Hudson broadcasted and headed for the stairs.

.

Half an hour later, John had napped some more, she woke him again.

"John?… Let's go down to my kitchen and have a decent lunch," she suggested in a low voice.

John briefly checked on Sherlock and followed her downstairs.

They sat at her kitchen table but John was not really enthusiastic about eating, he had barely touched his meal.

He asked her how much she knew about Sherlock's childhood, but she had no information at all. While he gave the landlady a brief explanation about what he had learned and how the detective was misunderstood in his past, he realised he had partially made the same mistakes.

"I was an idiot… I totally underestimated the dehydration, although I know he does not take care of his body's needs… I should have known. How could I have been so blind? Especially after I had learned how misunderstood he usually is when trying to communicate his sensations… I thought I'd make it worse by bringing medical equipment here."

"Dear, your choices were the right ones. You tried to evade stressing him, but this is _Sherlock_. I'm not sure he'd even recognise it as _stress_. He'd probably blind it out as a slightly annoying sensation, then decide what he wanted to do and go through with that, not matter what the 'transport' needs."

"Oh, he seemed pretty stressed the past three days."

"He probably was. But I'm not sure he'd know or realise that... or admit it."

"Doesn't matter, I should have _not_ been this careful. Sherlock doesn't need kid gloves, this is now clearer to me than ever… Maybe I was over-careful because of my own issues with traumatic events… Well, it was the wrong thing to do nevertheless and not only because I underestimated the dehydration from the start. I was waiting for typical patient reactions, you know, the normally behaviour - exactly what happened to Sherlock as a child: signals suppressed and language misunderstood. Partially he got worse because of that… and I _knew_… but was not able to get over my…"

"John, that's okay. Now you know, and you'll observe different in the future. That is what he needs, someone who is willing to tune into his version of communication. He knows he has to wait for people to understand, and he's not a patient person. Just guessing here… but I think it must be pretty hard on him. I'm not even sure he sorts things into easy and hard… and he trusts you… You know that, don't you?"

"Yes… Maybe I didn't dare to believe that until this morning… but I surely do now."

"I think I have never before heard him ask for help this clearly. You can definitely believe it."

"Well, he in fact, asked for a _favour_… God, I need to sleep," he added when he started to feel dizzy.

"I'll make a cuppa, go get some rest. I'll look after him."

"Okay, make sure you wash your hands regularly," John rubbed his eyes.

"I will."

"And don't throw any food away yet, we might need to find out where he caught it… and wake me if he needs to get up."

"I will," she repeated and patted his arm.

On his way to his bedroom the doctor checked on Sherlock once more and fell asleep fully dressed on his own bed, only moments after lying down.

.

Sherlock woke about two hours later while Mrs Hudson washed the dishes. She hurried to his side as soon as he made a soft moaning noise, drying her hands in a tea cloth.

"How are you doing?" she addressed the man on the sofa.

Sherlock blinked, disoriented.

"How did I get here?"

"I guess you walked, dear," she answered in a light and maybe over-kind voice.

"What happened?" he eyed the IV line.

"You asked John for that because you needed fluids."

"Say that again."

"You don't believe me?"

"No…"

"It's okay if you don't remember, John said that's not unusual, you were pretty sick."

"With what?" Sherlock still sounded very sick.

"Some nasty food poisoning or something, can't remember the name."

"I _don't_ get sick."

"There's a first time for everything… Haven't you been sick as a child?… No, don't get up…"

Sherlock actually listened to her and sank back into the cushions, quite spend by the minute movements.

"You want some tea?"

"Not really."

"What did your mother do when you were sick?"

"Nothing she didn't do when I was not sick. What is this about?"

"Just curious. I thought I could do you something good she did when you were little."

"Why do you think that would do me any good?"

"Oh, forget I asked. I was just interested in how you are."

"… and asking about my childhood sicknesses?"

"Maybe."

"Don't do that. It's annoying," Sherlock was getting unnerved.

"Do what."

"Getting… psychological on me… or mother-henning me, whatever this is."

"I'm just asking some stuff, trying to be nice," she was slightly offended by his grumpy replies.

"It won't work."

"Why not? Everybody needs some care now and then."

"Because you think you do it for me, but the truth is, it'll make us both frustrated and then the opposite off what you aimed for will happen… your subconscious motive is most likely that you want to have the feeling that you're doing _something_. Which might help you, but not me."

"Sherlock, I want to help. Why should this make us broth frustrated?" she put a mug with tea on the coffee table but he ignored it.

"Because, I'll find out what you want me to do and how you want me to react… and I don't work or think the expected way… and if I do it, I do it with the intension to conform with society, your expectations, or to get what I need to solve a case. The result is an artificial reaction to an artificial task you created to make me feel better. It's a social malady. You put energy in creating it and I put energy in responding, and none of that is doing anyone any good; it's just sucking away energy… So we both loose and we both gain nothing. If you want to do such thinks for yourself please don't involve me, and don't live in the illusion you're helping me. That's the opposite of any form of balance… Do us both a favour and _don't_ do this."

"Okay… the point is Sherlock, you're still suffering from those things… don't interrupt!" Mrs Hudson interfered when Sherlock took breath, "…and for your health's sake you need to trust John with it," she bit her lip. "The thing is, we don't like to watch you suffer. But this doesn't mean we do this for our own sake. You are dear to us, but when you don't tell us what you need we need to guess. And the results are not what you need. So you better tell us, easier for all of us."

"I…"

"Do you understand this kind of logic?"

"Partially, though it has the outer appearance of sentiment."

"It might have."

"I'm not sure I can do that."

"But that's my point, dear… All I'm saying is you need to try, nothing more."

"I don't need assistance."

"Yes, yes you do… You sometimes need somebody who translates for you what your body needs and just listen. As dull as it is, it's not _that_ hard, you know."

"I don't need to listen, it's getting me nowhere."

"John had some really bad days, too. I think he didn't sleep for more than two hours any time since Wednesday night. First chasing criminals with you and then taking care of you… He spent his time cleaning and playing nurse. Looked like death warmed over when I came home," she turned away and slowly headed back towards the kitchen.

"Your mother-henning him, too?"

"Of course, he deserves a bit of that sometimes, too, doesn't he?"

"Deserves? What has he done wrong?"

"Uh, Sherlock! Nothing!… It was meant as in 'doing him good' and… outweigh for a hard week… Don't get up, John needs to unhook you," she stated when Sherlock showed signs he was about to get up.

.

John woke in the late afternoon.

"John? Sherlock wants to get up," Mrs Hudson yelled up the stairwell, John had left his door open and sat up.

"I can do this alone," Sherlock informed her, not really friendly.

"Leave that alone! He'll be here in a minute."

John listened to them while walking down the stairs, still half asleep.

A light slapping noise could be heard.

"Did you just slap my hand?"

"Yes, and I'll do it again if you don't behave."

John felt the need to suppress a giggle, there was no one in the world except Mrs Hudson who would dare to slap Sherlock Holmes' hand… and probably no one who'd get away with it.

John entered the living room.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked Sherlock.

"Bathroom," his flatmate looked unnerved now.

"Alright," John took the plug and sealed the IV line properly after disconnecting the line, "No showers, yet!"

"What? Why not?" Sherlock's face clearly showed disgust.

"Not yet! Not with the cannula, and not as long as you aren't well enough to stand, maybe you can have a bath later."

"I'm not an invalid… And since we just… What was in that IV?"

"Electrolyte solution, vitamins, anti-emetics."

"I wasn't that sick."

"Believe it, you were… And we need to find out how you caught it. So feel free to make some deductions."

Sherlock frowned and shoved the blanket away.

"Sit up slowly," the doctor warned.

Sherlock ignored him and sat up, John saw his face pale a moment later.

"God! I said do it slow!… You have been sick for days, you can't do as if everything is fine."

"Everything _is_ fine."

It was no use in giving him advice, John decided he'd stop now, no need for further frustration on both sides.

"What happened?" Sherlock gulped, "When did you put that in?"

"Early this morning. You asked for it, you must have realised you were pretty dehydrated yourself… You don't remember?"

"No."

"What _do_ you remember from the past days?"

Sherlock's eyes wandered through the room for several seconds.

"I think I might have puked, in the bathroom…"

"Well, overall I think you did that more than a dozen times… What else?"

The consultant looked slightly dumbfounded about that information.

"Ehm… the violin was at my bedside."

John raised his eyebrows, of all the things that had happened he remembered _that_?

"That was last night. You were in bed since Friday night. Campylobacter infection. You vomited all night and the whole Saturday until it receded. The runs started sometime on Saturday, not sure, you threw me out. You remember nothing of that?"

"No. It'll come back later. What day is it?" Sherlock sounded exhausted.

"Sunday evening. You want to get up?"

"Yes."

"Be careful and please tell me if you feel faint."

"I never feel faint."

"Sherlock… Just tell me! You already got some bruises by falling on Saturday night, so don't deny it, it _is _possible."

"Oh."

"Check your shin if you have doubts."

"Where?"

"Where you fell? I don't know, I wasn't there, must have happened in your room."

Sherlock stood up, more careful now, he took the blanket up with him. The doctor was ready to help him, but it wasn't necessary.

The detective looked much better than the night before and scuffled towards the bathroom, ignoring his company.

"So, what do we do now?" Mrs Hudson asked in a hushed voice.

"Nothing, wait for him to get better. He'll probably feel bad for at least another four to five days. Will be fun keeping him in here for the next days," John answered with a hint of sarcasm.

"Is that really necessary?"

"There are rules for this kind of thing, though I have to look them up to find out what they exactly are… and we need to find out how he got it."

...

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...

_A/N:_

_Feedback appreciated._


	12. Chapter 12 - Sunday early evening

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

…

* * *

…

**Chapter 12**

**Sunday early evening**

John headed into the kitchen and opened the fridge, to jog his recollection of what Sherlock might have ingested and that he didn't. He fetched a tray and started to put the ingredients of their Friday night meal onto it. Of course there were loads of other ways how Sherlock could have gotten infected, the casework was another likely cause, but right now the most important thing was to rule out their home and prevent further spreading of the sickness. Or maybe it was the only thing John could actively work on, and he needed to work on something right now.

There was toast, they could rule that out, he had eaten it on Friday and Saturday.

Some vegetables… but Sherlock had not eaten those.

The dip?

He fetched what he had used to make it, yoghurt, mayonnaise, fresh herbs, etc.

"You want some tea? He hasn't touched it," the housekeeper entered the kitchen, a mug in her hand.

"No, I want coffee… wait… sugar… put the sugar on a tray, I try to sort out what he ate and I didn't, he put it in his coffee. It was a new package."

"I want coffee, too," Sherlock announced coming from the bathroom.

"No, you sit down and drink that," Mrs Hudson ordered before John could say anything and put the mug on the table, dragging the sick detective into the nearest chair.

"What did you eat since Wednesday?"

"I remember… four, no, five cups of tea… some tab water, a… bottle of mineral water… Sandwiches with dip."

"That's it?"

"Yes."

Mrs Hudson rolled her eyes, probably wondering why he hasn't died of starvation yet.

"Okay, I made the sandwiches, they were identical, we both ate the same. But you snapped up all the dip and left me none… I ate about a tablespoon of it and I didn't have any symptoms at all…"

No, wait, he had had an uneasy stomach for some hours… could it have been in the dip?

"All right, I put all the stuff that might be contaminated on here," he put it on the table in front of Sherlock while Mrs Hudson was busy making coffee.

"I need you to add all and everything you consumed that I didn't, whenever you remember it, okay?"

"What for?"

"First: so that we don't consume the rest of it by accident, and second: there is an obligation to report this infection… Okay, so think about what else you might had. Did you have a snack somewhere in between? Scotland Yard? Vending machine?"

"Thinking about solid food is not what I want to do right now."

"Well, we need to investigate this."

"Fine, can I have some coffee, now?" Sherlock still wore the blanket and was a picture of misery, dark circles under his eyes and his hair sticking to his skull.

"I would not recommend that," John tried.

"I don't really care."

"Fine. It's you who risks puking your guts out again, I'll stop giving advice since you're not interested at all."

"Obviously," Sherlock wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

He was still not himself, not really concentrated or focused… and irritated, but at least he seemed to be fully aware and a lot better than in the early morning.

"I'll get a new package of sugar, then," Mrs Hudson headed for the stairs.

"We might need to have those analysed," John pointed to the tray.

"Why don't we throw them all away?"

"... or that, yes. I don't know how accurate we need to file that report, I have to look it up. Procedure is a bit different to the military way of doing things like this. Saving troops from being incapacitated is somewhat serious. What tea did you have? Put it on the tray if you remember which brand and flavour it was… Did you experiment with anything that might have been infected?"

Sherlock gave John a weary look, "No."

"Nothing that might have been contagious"

"Didn't experiment."

"Right, okay."

John sat down at the table and drank his coffee in silence.

When Mrs Hudson came back with a paper bag of sugar, Sherlock poured at least three tablespoons into his steaming mug.

"Okay, boys, I'll go do some laundry, call if I can do anything."

"Thanks, Mrs H."

They sat there in silence, both staring tiredly ahead, deep in thoughts.

"You want some more paracetamol?" John finally broke the silence.

"No."

"You could have some more now, you'd feel much better with it."

"Leave me alone."

"I won't."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing, except making you better."

"Everyone expects something in return when offering something positive."

"Ehr… no!… Is that supposed to mean you think I'm doing this for some cheap favour?"

"I… I didn't mean to insult you," Sherlock stirred back, when he heard the doctor's odd tone, "…but usually people want something when they're nice."

The consultant still looked extremely exhausted and stared blindly ahead, his voice kind of distant.

"Sherlock, I'm offering some friendship here, did you get that?"

"Oh, I wasn't aware…"

He was silent for a long moment, "What do I do then?"

"Take it if you like… or otherwise tell me you're not interested?"

"And how do I take it?" Sherlock looked into his eyes.

"Maybe opening up and answer my following questions honestly would be a step in the right direction… You know, showing a bit of trust…" John narrowed his eyes and moved his head from one side to the other.

Sherlock nodded minutely and John interpreted it as a sign for him to continue.

"Why aren't you able to ask for help?"

"So, to anatomise my behaviour is considered an offer of friendship?"

"Not necessarily."

"I do that all the time with other people, do they think I offer them friendship?"

"No, definitely not," John stated.

"So what is different here?"

"I ask because I'm interested in what you _think_… and _want_ to understand it, not because I want to solve a case."

"You're sure this difference _is_ a difference?"

"Yes. So would you just answer the question?"

"I _am_ able to ask for help, I just usually decide not to try, because it's a waste of time."

"You're not evading this because you're ashamed to do it?"

"I don't know… but whenever I did it, in the end it was far worse than having not called for help at all… or I realised that the person I asked proclaimed fully confident about being able to help and in the end turned out to be less qualified than I was… and I had wasted my time."

"Can you make an example?"

"Does it needs to be a real one?"

"Not if that's too hard on you."

"It is not hard on me to describe what happened."

"I meant more in the sense of being ashamed… or inhibited talking about feelings."

"This is not about feelings."

John smiled inwardly. Was he not getting this, or purely denying it?

"I'd prefer a _real_ example then."

"When I was in school I wanted to build a mechanism to… doesn't matter. I assumed building it partially of wood and partially of metal would suffice the wanted outcome. Since I didn't have a clue how to work any metal I asked some of my teachers. They told me to see the handicrafts teacher and ask him how to saw and shape several metal pipes… This man then told me it would be better to build the whole thing out of wood; a lot easier and the outcome would be the same. I argued that wood was not hard enough and too easy to break at several spots of the construction. He convinced me that he was the grown up and knew better what would work best, then instructed me how to do it. I spend a long time trying to figure out how wood was better… and I had several areas in mind that might become tricky and weak spots in the whole construction when made of wood. I knew the pressure on several parts felt just too much for the kind of wood I had at hand. My parents told me the man was the expert and since they couldn't help that I needed to decide to trust him or find someone else… The internet wasn't available back then, so I build it like he said… Spend most of my holidays with it… When I finally was ready to try it for the first time, it broke… at one of the spots I had feared it might…"

Sherlock took a break and his gaze wandered through the kitchen.

"The teacher asked me later how the project went and I told him I gave it up… I didn't tell him I thought he was incompetent and the reason it failed, because my mother warned me not to be impolite and that it might not be the wisest decision to be honest about this. So, I didn't tell him it failed because he had urged me to use a faulty design… He was kind of angry or something with me, although I was very polite… He even accused me of stealing his time, a phrase that meant little to me, and he explained that he had spend half an afternoon to explain to me how he'd do it… and that he was angry because I was too lazy to finish it. So I was given wrong advice, put my trust in the wrong person, tried it nevertheless because said person explained he was an expert, was told I'm too young to understand when I pointed out the problems I saw… then failed… and spend days trying to locate the fault in _my_ thinking…" Sherlock looked kind of lost in thoughts now.

John decided to let his friend talk.

"Some time later a colleague of my father came over… and it turned out he had some understanding of what I wanted and told me there was no way to do that, except with extremely hard high quality special wood. But he wanted to encourage me, and told me it was okay to make mistakes choosing the wrong materials when you were young and that this was how one learned… and that I must have learned a lot building that amazing apparatus… and… he told me to use metal and that tools were expensive but I could borrow his if I wanted. I was frustrated about the teacher, of being considered inexperienced… and… my trust in people proclaiming they were experts, just because they had some training on a topic, went downhill ever since. I was criticised by the same teacher for giving up much to early and therefore having no impetus to work through problems, just because I was too polite to tell him…"

"That's not all, isn't it?" John tried to encourage him to continue after some long moments of silence.

"Oh, dear lord, if you must know…Two years later the man became my teacher in two subjects, my grades where pretty bad," Sherlock continued, his expression had become a bit harrowed, but he continued.

"He claimed I was lazy, misunderstood good intentions, not willing to understand the point of things and unable to follow instructions… For a long time I didn't understand why he would do that, but finally - when I learned more about human behaviour - it was obvious he had transferred his misconceptions from that one event to everything I did, not able to observe neutrally. Just because my demands to the outcome where higher and I tried to figure out how to do it to _my _quality requirements, I was considered unwilling… and because I saw much more patterns in everything than anybody else… Because I took my time to try several ways of reaching a goal with the best possible outcome I was considered slow and unwilling… Was this understandable or do I need to find more examples?"

"No, I got the point. It was the same when you saw doctors in your youth, wasn't it?"

Sherlock was silent for a long time.

When John was cursing inwardly to have rushed forward too fast and expected to be pushed back a soft "Yes," reached his ears.

He looked at Sherlock again, who looked down, almost ashamed.

John feared if he'd say something a normal person would find soothing, Sherlock wouldn't take it very well, so he said nothing.

"Do you trust my skills as a physician?"

"Yes, of course…"

"Then why do you send me away?"

"I don't know…"

"You fear to get worse by being misunderstood."

"You mean I still work by the procedures I wrote in my childhood?"

Sherlock had obviously skipped the answer and even the next question, but to this John was finally getting used to.

"Of course you do, everyone does. Childhood is when we learn the most… though some things need to be overwritten with time."

"I know. I thought I overwrote all old programs," Sherlock didn't sound good, his voice was even more hoarse than before.

"That's not possible."

"I don't know…" Sherlock's speech faltered.

John frowned.

Sherlock's tone had become more distressed within a few moments.

...

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...

_A/N:_

_Feedback appreciated._


	13. Chapter 13 - Sunday early evening 2

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

…

* * *

…

**Chapter 13**

**Day 3 - Sunday early evening**

John stood up and stepped closer to Sherlock, who was showing more distress by the minute. His hand sneaked up to the other man's brow and slowly settled down on his forehead.

Sherlock's skin was clammy and he was paler than moments before, and he didn't move away.

"What's up, Sherlock?" John asked in a soft voice.

"I… er… I don't…"

"Are you gonna be sick again?"

"Er…"

"I interpret that as a 'yes'. Come on. What are you still doing here, then?"

"I…"

John dragged him to his feet, careful not to make him dizzy, but not wanting to wait longer than necessary.

When they reached the bathroom, John managed to get the lid up just in time.

The detective emptied his stomach into the toilet and the dry heaving continued for some long moments.

Sherlock had started to tremble all over and had fallen to his knees in front of the porcelain bowl, obviously not sure he'd be able to stand any longer.

When John was sure it was okay to leave him for a minute he went to the kitchen to get some water.

His flatmate was sagged sideways against the tub when he returned.

John wetted a washcloth and started to wipe Sherlock's forehead, but the detective took the cloth from his hands and wiped his mouth.

"Thank… thank you for _not_ telling me you 'told me so'… and for _not_ deriding me because I didn't listen to you," Sherlock's voice was hoarse again, "Apparently, you were right, coffee was a stupid idea."

"I'll never taunt you when you're miserable, I promise… and I'm not happy I was right. Gloating is not what _friends_ should do… Come on, I think you're done here. I want you on that sofa with a new bag of that solution."

John briefly wondered why taunting was so very present in the Holmes' brothers relationship. He had only seen them together for some short episodes, but they were constantly quarrelling, it seemed.

Sighing softly, Sherlock allowed his friend to help him up and several wobbly steps later sat down on the sofa. John made him lie on his back and covered him with the blanket, then brought a new IV bag. After he had sat down next to his flatmate he once more pulled the skin of Sherlock's hand gently to see how fast it sprang back. Better than before, but not at all how it should be.

"I'm sorry if it was rude to confront you with my transport's malfunctions…" Sherlock started, he seemed to feel ashamed and vulnerable, maybe even disgusted.

"Seriously?… You realise this is complete nonsense?" John had sat down on the coffee table with the medical equipment next to him.

"No, why?"

"I'm a doctor, for god's sake. Doctors do that all day… It's our job to monitor health problems… and help patients get better… For doing that, watching is essential, don't tell me you don't know that."

"I…"

"You do, but right now you're a bit messed up… Why do you think that hiding your distress is necessary?"

"I don't want to be told I'm… to be told what I experience can't be true… And I don't want you to leave because you're disgusted by… People are grossed out when others puke or smell bad."

"Lot's of them are, but doctors deal with it… In fact you're in the wrong profession if you can't manage seeing someone vomit… because it happens all the time. Of cause there're some things that are really hard to watch, but puke and shit are not really some of those!"

"What are in _your_ opinion?"

"Severe cases of sepsis, for example; and seeing people die and not being able to help is very hard."

"Right, but the classification of the place where sickness happens is the factor that… makes it difficult."

"You lost me."

"Of course, I know what doctors see and need to observe, but they do this at work, in hospitals, somewhere where sickness is _supposed_ to be… Not at _home_, in their free time. People like to make a line in between this. Stupid and inefficient in my opinion, but you told me repeatedly you don't like body parts in the fridge… or experiments containing bodily fluids. You seemed… disgusted by it, just because it was not 'at work'."

John chuckled.

"Yeah. But you being sick is something different… Because you can't help it, _that's_ the important factor… What makes you think sickness stays in hospitals? In fact, most people prefer to be sick at home."

"Really? Why?"

"Because when you already feel vulnerable, helpless and hurt, you want to be somewhere where you feel safe and have things around you that you love."

Sherlock stared at the wall for several seconds, "Oh… Right, but that's not really what I meant… It was more about…"

"Yeah?"

"I don't want to be… ballast."

"Okay, that I understand. But it's nonsense, Sherlock. You're a friend and this is not a burden."

"Why not?"

"Because that is what friends are for, helping each other in need, laughing together, solving cases together… Share good and bad times… Wait, why do you think you're a burden?"

"I was told quite frequently when I was younger that my lack of social alignment made me a nuisance and that I should not wonder that no one wants to be bothered with such a stubborn and rude personality. People leave if you get on their nerves, or burden them with things…"

"Some do, yes, but those people don't really know you and those are _not_ friends."

"…And some do as if they want to be burdened, or are interested, but in the long run, they go away, too. They were just pretending because they wanted something for themselves and masking their motives by faked care. I quite frequently wonder if the concept of friendship or love is just an illusion. Because people do what suits them and most of them only seem to fake affection… and when things get difficult they go the easy way."

"Is that what you're afraid of?… That I leave because you get on my nerves or because I prefer the easy way?"

No answer.

"Surely, there're loads of people who act the way you just described, selfish and mean, but there're also those who don't…"

"Yess, and those few ones, will get exploited sooner or later too by the first group and then become frustrated and decide they don't want to care any longer as well."

"Is that why you don't trust me with this? Because you think I'll leave if I see you in a weakened state?… Sherlock, where you openly caring in the past and decided against it?"

Sherlock just stared ahead.

"No," the detective disagreed.

Bingo.

John was amazed how deep this had gone within a few seconds.

"What can I say… Yeah, you got it right, many people don't live the things they preach… They are nice on the outside and ugly on the inside. But you won't find any good people if you don't risk seeing their insides."

"Why look?"

"You gave up?"

"Gave up what?"

"Looking. When?"

"Why are you interested in all this? I feel mentally dissected," Sherlock let his head rest on his crossed arms, hiding his face efficiently this way.

"When did you decide not to let anyone in?"

"When I was in school."

"Have you ever thought about trying it again?"

"At the U."

"And your experiences there confirmed the former decision?"

"Yes."

"So, I am… what?… An accident?… Why did you let me in?"

"It… It felt right."

John raised his eyebrows, well aware his flatmate was opening up, and when he was honest with himself, he was really surprised.

"Did you even consider having a flatmate before you met me?"

"Er… Not really."

"What happened?"

"Mike suggested it, I assumed more as a joke, and I answered that no one would like to live with me… and then he came back with you."

"And you then decided spontaneously to try it?"

"Yes…"

"You know… whenever I think I start to understand how you tick you do something that totally blows off the whole thing… just like now."

"No offence, but that might be part of the problem. People try to put me into their neat little boxes, and I don't fit in. But it's too much work to take a closer look to check if I was sorted in right, or if they do, to admit that their first impression was wrong. To evade facing that they were wrong, they stuff me in another box that usually is for the worse," Sherlock spoke so fast John had problems to follow. "Not with you, though… You seem to be willing to un-box me when needed. Though I'd prefer if no boxes existed at all."

"In fact I like you being not 'box able'. Makes life much more interesting… You also have boxes."

"Well… maybe, but they're different, their walls are not solid, so they are not confinements… And where normal people have ten boxes for a feature I have at least 386."

"Ten… 386…?"

"Rough guess."

"Er, to be honest, I think for _one_ attribute / characteristic many people have _one_ box, maybe two."

"This is frustrating… You're sure the boxes are even labelled with _attributes_?… Where are the nicotine patches?"

"No nicotine yet," John stated.

"Don't!… If I sit here, patient, and answer your ridiculous questions, grant me that at least."

"You're lying down… Does it even make you uneasy to admit _that_?"

"Present as less points of attack as possible to the world. So, where are they?"

John sighted inwardly, it would take a long time to make Sherlock trust him consciously, though he already seemed to do so subconsciously… or when on autopilot.

The topic was much too complex to establish trust within one weekend.

John knew from his own trust issues that this worked in waves. It depended on events and actions, some lowered and some heightened trust in another being. That trust receded partially was part of the process now and then.

Sherlock would carefully trust him more with time, he was sure about it, because the foundation was there, clearly visible. The detective already trusted him more than anyone else… Confidence would grow in time, as John's trust in Sherlock grew constantly.

The past days seemed to turn out to be an episode of fast forward… So, there were trust issues on both sides, though totally different kinds.

John grinned.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing's funny. Takes one to know one."

"Know what?"

"Trust issues."

"Oh… Right…"

John switched on the telly and handed Sherlock the remote, then connected the new bag of electrolyte solution to his IV port. He wondered what had motivated his flatmate to bare his soul like this… He had hoped for it, of course, but he had expected to get a door in the face. This actually slightly astounded him.

"You want to sleep?"

"I feel as if I slept the past two days," Sherlock stated, tough his eyes seemed very heavy lidded already, "but my memories seem to come back, I remember more now."

"Right, you kind of did… Why don't you nap a bit and in the meantime I'll look for those patches," John was not an idiot, withdrawal from nicotine would make Sherlock more miserable than he was already, so he'd give them to him if he asked again.

John went to the bathroom and cleaned before touching anything.

When he came back, Sherlock was breathing deeply, obviously asleep.

The drip was regular and John headed up the stairs to take a nap, too.

Before falling into an exhausted sleep he wondered briefly if Sherlock had answered his questions because he really wanted to, or because he was just to jaded to fight… Maybe his flatmate needed those explanations of human interaction and relationships. No doubt, he knew about them in theory and had meticulously stored the information, but that was a whole different thing from being in interaction in real life.

Sherlock's mind was an astounding mixture of a wonderland and a minefield. Curiosity and hurt and wisdom and ignorance… a remarkable place to see.

...

* * *

...

_A/N:_

_Feedback appreciated._


	14. Chapter 14 - Day 4 – Monday, about noon

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

_Thank you so much for your reviews and your support :)_

…

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…

**Chapter 14 **

**Day 4 – Monday, about noon**

Sherlock had slept through the night, or so John thought when he came downstairs at about 10:00 o'clock.

His flatmate seemed fast asleep with his back to the room. The IV bag was empty and the line dangled from the lamp, no longer connected. He stood on his toes and tried to see Sherlock's hand, which was hidden in between the blankets.

"I needed the bathroom," Sherlock's muffled voice came from under the blanket, "I plugged it properly using a sterile new cap." A hand worked out from under the chaos of the fabric and showed John the port.

He had indeed. John didn't ask how he was doing, he assessed his state by observation.

"Ta," John mumbled and headed for the bathroom himself.

About half an hour later he was freshly showered and shaven.

"If we put a plastic bag over your hand and you make sure the IV port won't get wet, you could have a bath," he suggested. Sherlock must be feeling quite uncomfortable by now.

"I'd prefer if you take it out."

"Not yet. Tonight, if you drink everything that I give you and it stays down."

Sherlock started to unwrap himself from the blankets and John went to fill the tub and fetch a large plastic bag as well as some elastics.

While John was still rummaging in the bathroom Sherlock shuffled in, fetched his razor and a mirror and sat on the closed lid, kind of like a sleepwalker.

"You're awake?"

"If I wasn't I probably hadn't sat down but got rid of my clothes already."

"Oh…" John grinned and helped him to make his hand waterproof.

"I'll make some tea then. Don't fall asleep in there," John left.

.

Ten minutes later the doctor's phone rang.

Mycroft again.

John thanked him for the fast testing of the sample and updated him on Sherlock's condition.

The older Holmes offered to come by, but then they agreed it would be better for all of them if he stayed away for a bit longer. They doubted Sherlock would enjoy a sick bed visit. Mycroft thanked John for the good care of his brother and made him promise he'd call if they needed anything.

When they had just hung up Sherlock's phone signalled the arrival of a text. John would tell him to check it as soon as he got out of the bathroom.

Sherlock took his time.

Fifteen minutes later someone could be heard coming up the stairs, then knocked on the half open living room door.

Lestrade entered.

"Hi."

"Hello, John," the DI greeted, "Sherlock here?"

"He's… kind of busy right now, can I help you?"

"Any new ideas about the case?"

"Ehm… I don't think he worked on the case the past two days."

"Why not? What happened?" Greg looked worried.

"He got sick."

"What?"

"Yeah, can you believe it? He…"

"Wait, this was not about me not believing it… I'm not sure I would if this wasn't coming from _you_. The thing is Anderson is sick since yesterday with a kind of ugly… not a stomach bug, but… the word alone was ugly already."

"Wait, Campylobacter?"

"Er, yeah… I think so. His wife called an ambulance because his cramps were so painful she kind of panicked. Don't tell me Sherlock's got the same."

"Blimey. He has in fact, started Friday night. So, with this new information I can put all the food back into the fridge and we just significantly narrowed down the source of the infection."

"Christ, the chicken farm."

"The chicken farm, yes," John agreed.

"Why didn't we get it, then?"

"Well, Sherlock and Anderson were the ones knee-deep in the waste. This kind of undermines my lecture about protective clothes," John shook his head. "Anderson was wearing _all_ of it according to regulations. And Sherlock was already kind of exhausted and dehydrated, before."

"Well, Anderson just got over the flue last week. The farm is now shut down by the disease control centre. The owner has to face not only the charges of covering up a murder, but also the ones of carelessly spreading the disease. There's a second investigation going how many recent Campoler- whatever- infections are from this exact bacteria stem."

"The amount of bacteria that is needed to fetch this is low, the fact that we haven't shown any symptoms yet, doesn't mean we didn't catch it. Can last up to a week."

"Oh, great! Any ideas how to avert an outbreak?"

"Someone recently suggest Grappa. I drank one, want one, too?"

"No drinking on the job."

"Hm, this is more meant like preventive medication."

"'kay. Sally is driving anyway. She's having a coffee next door."

John poured a small amount of the liquid into a glass and handed it over. Greg downed it in one gulp and his face contorted.

"Oh, this is…"

"Expensive, and reminds me of… rectified spirits. It's not my thing."

"This tastes like… for cleaning purposes only. I wonder why anyone would drink it if there's a choice."

"Cleaning your stomach… Mycroft gave it to me for medical purposes. My stomach was kind of uneasy but since I downed a dose of that it's better."

"Oh, let's hope it was worth it."

Sherlock could be heard going into his room.

"He's…"

"I know how he is when he's bad or incapacitated," Lestrade explained.

"Really, how?"

"How bad was it?" Lestrade ignored the question, "Anderson was pretty messed up."

"I… difficult to tell. He was kind of out of it and I had problems getting any information out of him."

"Sounds like him."

"He's on the mend but the next days won't be nice."

"Yeah, already heard how that thing works. Okay, so if you need help keeping him busy or you need anything at all, just give me a call."

"Busy?"

"As soon as he's able to think roughly straight he'll be bored… And he'll drive you nuts, when bored and in pain and unnerved… Trust me, better keep his mind occupied."

"I will. Ta."

"Call me," Greg raised his hand in greeting and John nodded.

Then the inspector vanished down the stairs.

John sat down in front of the telly with his tea, watching the news.

The chicken farm! The risk to get this from contaminated food was a lot higher than _this_. Sherlock refused to wear protective gear, but was very disciplined when it came to certain behaviours necessary for safety or to prevent contaminating a scene, for example he'd never ever accidentally touch his face with a gloved hand, or anywhere else where he shouldn't.

In Sherlock's presence Anderson was usually busy with making insulting remarks, complaining about his presence, proving him wrong and doing as if the consultant needed to be told how to behave on a crime scene. So very occupied by his aversion that he had made some mistakes himself in the past.

It was no use to speculate how exactly they had caught it. For now John was just glad it wasn't in the food or the flat, much easier this way. He was really relieved in fact.

.

When Sherlock returned to the sofa a few minutes later John told him about what he had learned in every detail he remembered.

Sherlock just kept quiet, listened and looked even embarrassed when John told him where he got ill and that Anderson got it, too. To John's surprise he didn't ask anything, not even after the doctor had finished, neither for details and nor for the state of the investigation or if there were any news about it.

But he stood up and stumbled into the kitchen, he came back with a large rubbish bag and gloves. He carefully stuffed his coat his dress shoes and his scarf into it, then sealed the bag with a cable tie.

"Laundry?"

"Downstairs, I'll take care of it," John offered.

Sherlock sank back into the sofa after leaving the closed bag in the stairway.

"I don't think your usual drycleaner does shoes," John said with a grin.

"I don't know."

John took care of the laundry with gloves, to prevent Mrs Hudson from doing it and risking infection.

They watched telly for until the late afternoon but Sherlock napped most of the time.

The evening had Sherlock working on his laptop, barely speaking a word. But whenever John offered him something to drink he slowly sipped it until it was gone. It all stayed down and John was eased to see him getting better.

.

After he shooed him towards his bed in the late evening and Sherlock was horizontal, he removed the IV-port and examined Sherlock again.

Later, he kept Sherlock's door open, while he checked his emails.

Sherlock's sleep was uneasy, John heard him moan softly in his sleep now and then, but wasn't sure waking him was a good idea. Sherlock had refused painkillers twice today, chances where high offering them to him once more was useless.

.

Two hours later John decided this was an unnecessary ordeal and fetched some pills and a glass of water.

He found his flatmate sweating and clearly in pain.

"Sherlock?"

John gently shook the sick man's shoulder.

"Come on, wake up."

"What?" Sherlock jerked awake.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," John rested his hand on Sherlock's shoulder in a soothing gesture.

"How long did I sleep?" Sherlock's face showed he was not happy about the disturbance.

"Only for about an hour. You're in pain. Take are some painkillers. Come on," his tone was soft, but had an order in it.

Sherlock looked up at him in the semi-dark, the diffuse light from the kitchen shining in through the door.

After about five seconds of hesitation he reached for the pills John was offering and sat up slowly.

"Here's some water," he held out the hand with the glass.

"Obviously. Thanks," Sherlock swallowed the medication and handed the glass back.

When he was lying on his side again, the duvet pulled up to his ears, John heard a low sigh, of relieve? No way, the painkillers would at least need fifteen minutes to start to take effect.

"You're okay?"

"Yes, I am, I think… Thank you, John."

The doctor took a step back to see his face better.

Sherlock's eyes were closed.

"For what exactly?"

"For being kind and… offering… help."

"You're welcome. Good night," he gently patted Sherlock's wrapped shoulder and then left, leaving the door wide open once more.

Sherlock had really honestly - out of free will - thanked him!

And it had sounded as if it really was the result of him being grateful, not because he tried to meet social requirements. This was probably the nicest and kindest thing Sherlock had said to him up to now.

Shortly after that John climbed up the stairs to his own bed.

…

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…

_A/N:_

_Please let me know what you think._


	15. Chapter 15 - Day 2 & 3 - Sherlock's POV

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

_I left the days over the paragraphs, at first I created them in order to not lose my sense of time, and decided to leave them there for your orientation, but Sherlock is definitely not aware what day or time it is._ _…__._

…

* * *

...

**Chapter 15 – Sherlock's POV**

_[Day 2 - Saturday Night, late]_

He remembered sweet things on his tongue, tasted odd, something was missing. H2CO3… maybe… probably.

Chemistry… he had tried to figure out why carbonic acid had such an impact on taste… that was long ago, very long ago…

Mummy was there and had encouraged him.

She didn't mind him trawl through the kitchen looking for things that contained it and trying to taste it with and without it… getting it out was easy, getting it in was somehow tricky.

In coffee was nasty, though; Mummy didn't like it, neither did he. She had laughed when he made carbonated coffee, and told him in Italy people actually drink that, it could be bought it in bottles… Sherlock had asked her to tell her about Italy.

Then he jerked awake.

John was there, "Easy. You're okay."

John was touching him…

Yikes… another expression from his childhood, from TV.

"Let me go."

The doctor did.

"Lean back against the pillows… You need to take this and get hydrated… Drink this. You'll feel better then," John held out pills.

"It won't stay down."

Something in him felt like it would erupt if he even considered thinking about swallowing something.

Why was the world so misty?… Mist was usually_ outside_… and white, not black.

"It will, try it."

Why was John getting on his nerves?

"I'm not up for another round of vomiting yet, leave me alone."

"Sherlock, take these… Come on… Open up."

He felt dizzy, John vanished.

"Drink."

Hm, John was back, bugging him. Something touched his lips and before he knew what was happening his body had taken control and drank… He hated when his transport overruled his mind… and it did quite often recently.

"Sherlock, did you throw up into the bed?"

Why was it so cold in here? Warmth was back suddenly… what had just happened?

"I'll examine you, relax."

Bright light, made him nauseous again.

Cold traveling across his body.

John, this is not worth it.

Pressure.

Why was John bugging him?

"Go away," Sherlock managed, but instead of vanishing the pain in his hip increased sharply.

The world was moving around him, something shifted.

He took a deep breath and fought the nausea… and the pressure on his hip.

Then someone was slapping him.

Fall? What?

"When?… I fell sev'al times during the past thirty years, could'ou be more specific?"

"Did you fall since you puked for the first time on Friday?"

"I don't know."

This was ridiculous, he had fallen so often he lost count, especially when he tried to learn how to walk.

"Did you wake up on the ground since Friday?"

Why was that relevant?

"Maybe…"

"Do you hurt in some kind that would feel more like an injury than sickness?"

He hurt all over on _so_ many spots… or maybe not at all, it was just confusing.

"I don't know."

"You want something? A book? Your laptop? Listen to a CD?"

Odd questions.

"My violin."

Yes, he _really_ wanted her in here.

John brought her, he put the case down and opened it, this felt better.

It was kind bringing her in here, wasn't it?

John had been kind to him during the past hours… there was something to do to people who were nice, otherwise they wouldn't be nice again… Yeah, right, thank them.

He was so tired… Since when was fatigue an issue?

Fight it!… John had brought the instrument… God, having a muddled mind and knowing it was the worst thing he had encountered in a very long time.

Did he deserve kindness? He hadn't been nice to his flatmate and let his transport's malfunctions been visible on the outside, hadn't he?

But before he could figure that out, John was gone and he was alone… and then he was back, making him drink again… and again…

He decided to endure it and ignore that action in case it'd repeat… or let something else take over… automatism… He didn't want to be bothered…

Needed to preserve energy.

Retreat.

.

_[Day 3 - Sunday morning]_

Something woke him, it felt not good… nasty in fact.

Something was wrong.

He tried to sit up, huge effort… It shouldn't be that hard… Something was wrong!

His head felt different.

No, his mind felt far away from his body.

He was not able get up.

He was not able to do it alone…

Get help!

He was… he needed help!

A siren had switched on somewhere, like a claxon, bugging him.

Get help!

Why?

Lifethreatening.

Was this _this_ serious?

Nonsense.

Go get help!

Damn autopilot.

Move… Get up!

Before he knew what was happening he did.

Trembling, his transport was misbehaving.

He tried to control it but felt very weak.

His heart rate was at a very uncomfortable high level, felt not good, this indeed was more serious than he had thought. It raised something urgend.

Another alert started somewhere. Panic mode warning?

What had trigged the emergency-programs?

He was shivering so much he was not sure he'd make it to the kitchen, but then - without remembering how he had passed the kitchen - he was in the living room, looking out of the window. If this was reality there would be street down there.

Rediculous, if he was in his mind palace he could as well give the windows a view, though there usually was no exterior.

"Sherlock?… Shit…What are you doing out of bed?"

He dimly remembered... the living room had vanished… and he wanted to re-conquer it, look at the street, make sure it was still there.

"How are you doing?… Sherlock?… Are you with me?"

John was a nice soul… Maybe he needed to confirm that?

No, why state the obvious?

"Oh, John… Glad you're still here, too."

"Ta. Come on, sit down."

Something else was missing.

He was indeed perturbed… that his world might change…

Had he done something wrong….? Something was not as it was supposed to be… the autopilot was overruling him too much and too often. Had he taken something?

"Sit down."

Something was dragging him.

"You need to drink, sit down… Sherlock, come on, open your eyes… Sherlock!… That's it, all the way… Here, drink this."

He tried, he really did. But it felt so awful, felt ugly… He needed to push the feeling away, make it go away, keep it contained.

"Sherlock, if you need to puke, don't hold it back."

No, he would _not_ loose it, it had been too much a fight to ingest it!

"John… You're a doctor…"

A pop up caught his attention: liquids, fast.

"I… I need a favour."

He had never before asked for a favour like this… was this a wise decision?

The pain was muddling with his thoughts, head felt like it was about to explode.

John said something but perception was disturbed.

He bit his fingernail, bad habit, but this was kind of… very private… He hadn't meant to speak about this.

He felt like drifting.

"Yes… Okay. I want you to lie back down first."

Something was pressing… cold on his forehead.

"Try to relax, I will get the stuff."

John was absent… and then back.

Something stinging on the back of his hand… fading down that sensation.

Then a sensation sneaked up his arm… and he felt empty, no, more like hollow in his head.

The absence of several strings of thoughts rushing by made him feel alone and desperate, his thoughts were in such an unsettling disarray and so simple it hurt. He wanted them to come back and behave as they used to be, not like in slow motion.

Was the pain driving them away?

What if they never came back?

"I need something else."

Had he really been so dumb to say this out loud?

"Feels… empty… my mind."

"Okay. What is usually there?" John could be heard in the distance.

Something felt even worse than before… his digestive tract was so hard to ignore. It was already when it was fine, but now it was… much worse.

"I don'know… Something hurts."

"Where exactly?"

Sherlock tried to describe the feeling and John suggested his tightness was adding to it.

He knew that, but relaxing had never been something that came easy, was quite hard in fact…

His eyes had closed on their own, again.

He tried to push the nerve-racking sensations to the back of his mind and escape to his mind palace.

Maybe he'd find some peace there.

But he was brought back when something cold happened to his face… gentle, felt good… fresh.

He hadn't had a bath in days and felt filthy.

If he didn't manage to put those sensations away he'd get insane.

When he felt the slight bitter chemical taste of sleep, he frowned.

It was so hard to call it when he wanted it, why was it here unwanted now?

But sleep was a good way to escape.

He felt his hand twitch and allowed his mind to fall backwards to the hard woollen blackness of sleep.

.

_[Day 3 - Sunday afternoon]_

Sherlock woke to the sound of porcelain moving in water.

"What happened?"

He eyed the IV line, his voice was hoarse.

"You asked John for intravenous fluids because you were dehydrated," a female voice came from somewhere nearby, Mrs Hudson.

He doubted he'd ever do something like that at first, but then some vague memories came back… He had indeed, but it felt more like a nightmare than a memory, so confused and mixed up.

"You were pretty sick, dear. Some nasty food poisoning or something."

"I don't get sick."

But more memories of running to the bathroom and throwing up came back.

When he tried to sit up his whole body seemed to ache, which convinced him to abandon the idea.

Some time later she tried to ask him about his childhood? No way.

"Oh, forget I asked. I was just interested in how you were feeling."

He didn't want to know how he was feeling at all right now… he wanted the sensations to go away, the memories of frailty.

"Don't do that. It's annoying," Sherlock was getting unnerved. He tried to explain why he didn't value her behaviour.

"You need to trust John with it… _We_ have to _watch_ you hurt, and that is hard for us, by the way," she scolded him, he once more felt like a child. But partially she was right, no one was profiting from him hiding his sickness, but it felt so wrong not to hide it.

"…John had some really bad days, too. I think he didn't sleep for more than two hours in one go, since Wednesday night. First chasing criminals with you and then taking care of you… He spend his time cleaning, and playing nurse. He looked like death warmed over when I came home."

So if he had behaved wrong, what would be the right way?

Hide it, to make John not suffer from his sickness?

He was irritated. He had tried that, he had failed… Was he supposed to hide it or not? Was she saying this to make him regret his behaviour?

Sometimes she was so annoyingly confusing!

He needed the bathroom… he looked around for a sterile IV plug, it must be somewhere nearby.

"John? Sherlock wants to get up," Mrs Hudson yelled.

He winced when the loud noise hurt his ears.

"I can do this."

"Leave that alone! He'll be here in a minute."

He ignored her. The moment he reached for the tube to unhook it she slapped his hand.

He stared up at her in disbelieve. Feeling once more like a small child. He had hated being a child, and he now found it repulsing to be reminded of how it felt.

"Did you just slap my hand?" he couldn't believe it.

"Yes, and I'll do it again if you touch that."

He opened his mouth to say something but then closed it, maybe he should just shut up, he was unnerved, she was unnerved. Probably John was unnerved, too.

…

* * *

…

_A/N:_

_RL background, don't read if you don't want to know: _

_I managed to get a Campylobacter-infection when I had just started senior high school / sixth form. I got a nice dress down by the doctor (when after four days I was __finally__ dragged there) for not showing up earlier. I didn't dare to tell him I feared to be misunderstood once more and therefore didn't consider it._

_I fetched it because I warmed up something in the microwave that contained contaminated eggs. Since it was the first microwave my family owned (and we had it only for a few months) I didn't know it heated the food up only to a temperature that was ideal for bacteria multiplying, the rest of my family had eaten the same meal before and didn't get sick. Well, now I know better. It was a nasty experience and the things I described that Sherlock thinks and feels here is pretty much what I experienced._


	16. Chapter 16 - Day 3 - Sherlock's POV

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

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_Thank you so much for your reviews and your support :) I am kind of surprised people uttered that they enjoy reading this story again, and quite happy about that fact, too._

_._

_I left the days over the paragraphs, not to loose my sense of time, and decided to leave them there for your orientation, but Sherlock is definitely not away what day or time it is._

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**Chapter 16 – Sherlock's POV**

[Day 3 - Sunday]

John disconnected the IV tube but forbade him to shower.

How had he known he wanted to shower?

"We need to find out how you caught it. So feel free to make some deductions."

Slowly, Sherlock made another try to get up. He tried to convince himself - and John - that he was fine and needed no more attention… Everyone watching his every move was an unpleasant experience.

"What do you remember from the past days?"

Sherlock considered shutting him out, then he realised he hadn't done it automatically.

He couldn't ignore _John_, he needed to give John some trust… maybe Mrs Hudson was right and… telling him would be better.

"I think I might have puked, in the bathroom," he briefly described one of his misty memories.

Campylobacter infection. Bruises from a fall. He was messed up!

And he had made it worse by denying it. God, Mrs Hudson _was_ right.

He felt ashamed, he hadn't felt like this in a very long time.

What was it that forced him to remember his childhood so often in the past hours?

He hurried into the bathroom, taking the nice and warm blanket with him, glad nobody followed him.

When he re-entered the kitchen he had forgotten the warm cocoon, so he returned to fetch it from the rim of the tub, someone spoke of coffee.

Yes, coffee would be great, sounded so good!

"I want coffee, too."

"No, you sit down and drink _that,_" Mrs Hudson ordered, dragging him into the nearest chair. Maybe he should just surrender to whatever odd social behaviour they expected from him… be compliant… take the line of least resistance.

He was just too tired to care.

They asked, he answered.

Oh, a task! Find the source of the bacterium.

When he tried to do some productive thinking his thoughts were… rummy, tasting pale and mint green… distorted….

Why investigate this?

John explained the reason… sounded logical.

"Can I have some coffee, too?"

He wanted _sugar_ and caffeine… he'd feel more awake with both. Maybe it would even help the headache.

"I wouldn't recommend that," John informed.

"I don't really care."

He was cold, sugar would make it better.

Finally there was a mug in front of him with hot sweet coffee.

He sipped it… tasted good. He felt like he hadn't had something tasting this good for months… the flavour was even better than he remembered!

He sat there, unmoving, on one hand disturbed by the lopsidedness of this thoughts, on the other glad that he was managing to sit at a table and experience the _desire_ to drink something for a change.

Sometime later John offered painkillers, he refused.

"I want nothing, except making you better. Is that supposed to mean you think I'm doing this for some cheap favour?"

He had dropped a brick - again.

Was it just imagination or had he done that repeatedly in the past days?… Interacted socially wrong? Done the opposite of the expected? Was is worth doing what they expected?

Well, they were here… and they did things for him… Why? He didn't know…

Would he do things for Mrs Hudson when she was sick?

Of course, or at least he would make _somebody_ do them. Therefore he probably shouldn't be so surprised they tried, too.

He was confused… and so _tired_.

The pesky amount of questions running through his brain without pausing were clearly exaggerated.

Why was it that way?

He needed to stop the flow, it was taxing and getting on his nerves.

Great, what wasn't?

He wanted his mind to shut up.

"Sherlock, I'm offering some friendship here, did you get that?"

That utterance caught him off-guard.

He had thought John wouldn't want to be his friend.

When he had introduced John as a _friend_ to Sebastian the doctor had rectified him, called himself a colleague… Sherlock was pretty sure he had gone too far… had blundered. After that event he had tagged the word 'friend' as 'not to be used for John' in the future.

John was quite annoyed with him sometimes… friends wouldn't behave like that, would they? Another hint.

How should he react to that offer now?

He was puzzled.

"Oh, I wasn't aware… What do I do then?"

"Take it if you like… or otherwise tell me you're not interested?" John explained.

Quite logical, but he was still confused abut the offer itself.

"And how do I take it?"

Was that teasing? Had John changed his mind? People did that.

Was John asking him? Expecting he'd say 'no'? People did that, too… but John was not the kind of person who did such things… No, especially after helping him in the last few days.

Mrs Hudson had said he had taken care of him, playing nurse - not the nicest of jobs.

"Maybe opening up and answering my following questions honestly would be a step in the right direction… You know, showing a bit of trust…"

Sherlock had not expected that one… what will he ask? Was it wise to do this?

"Why aren't you able to call for help?"

Absurd question, he wasn't sure what it meant. He had no answer.

And he had called for help last night… severely. But maybe that didn't count, it wasn't the result of a conscious choice; his autopilot had started a self-preservation-routine without consulting him.

Had John understood that?

Was John able to see when he was on autopilot?

The path of thoughts resulted in him feeling naked.

"So, to anatomise my behaviour is considered an offer of friendship?"

John explained the difference between 'discussing behaviour as deduction' and 'opening up to a friend'… the motives were supposed to show the difference.

Sherlock tried to put into words why he considered asking for help a waste of time… There was no point, no matter how specific and accurate he had made requests for help in the past, the results were always gravely frustrating.

When John wanted examples he tried to explain the dynamics.

"It was the same when you saw doctors in your youth, wasn't it?"

Where did John get that idea?

How had he made that deduction?

_Was_ it a deduction?… not entirely.

The topic of his childhood doctors had passed by him at least once during…?

Had he dreamt about them?… Before, he had been sure it was just a nightmare.

Why did John know what he had dreamt about?

Had he talked in his sleep?

The subject was kind of stressful, yes… He felt embarrassed.

He didn't really want to tell John, but the doctor seemed to know already, so it didn't matter.

And he offered friendship, that hadn't happened often to him before. The man seemed to be a good person, he had never used any personal information against him yet… Mrs Hudson also thought he should open up. She was usually a reliable source for social interaction.

Since when were those decisions made in reconciliation?

Oh god, he wished the questions would shut down.

"Yes."

He had said it, but it felt 'not good'.

"Do you trust my skills as a doctor?"

Of course he did. Why was John doubting it? He thought he had made _that_ quite clear from their first case.

"Then why do you send me away?"

What had the one thing to do with the other?

"You fear to get worse by being misunderstood?"

John jumped between topics, exertive.

Something in his perception shifted… He felt cold.

Did he really fear that?

No, he _knew_… since when…?

Since he was a child.

Traction somewhere… getting worse fast.

He realised his insides were cramping.

God, not that again… He was supposed to be over with _that_.

A hot wave rushed over his skin.

Suddenly John was next to him and touched his forehead. The hand felt odd - he dared to inspect the feeling of the touch a bit more - and stabilising, not as bad as he had expected.

"What is it? Are you gonna be sick again?"

Probably.

John helped him up, vertigo hit him, hard.

Before he knew what was really happening he was retching again.

Oh, good, the toilet had been there in time.

He felt shaky and even more tired.

When was this gonna stop?

Wrong, it _had_ stopped, why was it _back_?

The coffee.

John had opted against it because he knew it would come back up.

He was an idiot.

He should_ really _stop himself sometimes and just trust John with the translation of what his transport needed.

But it had tasted _so_ good.

And caused John to be encumbered with him vomiting again, that was probably not very friendship-like.

His skin felt bad, wet and cold with sweat, every air movement exaggerated.

John was still there… kind and offering help, although he just had been rude to him.

"Thank… thank you for abstaining from expressing that you told me so… And for not deriding me because… I didn't listen to you," Sherlock tried to apologise while he also tried to breathe properly.

"You were right, coffee was a stupid idea," he continued.

The doctor patiently explained to him why _that_ was considered friendship.

Sherlock understood he had never really associated these things with friendship, but then he had to face the fact that he probably never had a _real_ friend before.

John helped him back to the sofa, covered him with a blanket and explained to him why he wanted to care for a friend… and offer his medical knowledge to him, too.

Sherlock recognised that he had not dared to ask this from him, tried to explain why he didn't want to be a burden this way.

When he was really honest with himself he knew his social incompetence was already enough of a burden for most people… and he didn't want John to behave like most people.

John poked some more which left him feeling dissected… he answered, though it felt alarming to do so.

This inner conflict was exhausting.

He wanted to shed some trust.

Decision made.

Trying the concept 'friendship' might actually be the right choice… Had he thought he already was inside the concept when he introducing John as a friend?

According to what he had learned in the past three days it was not friendship what he had thought the word meant back then. Those new information were more complex and different to what had reckoned before… Or had it just needed more time to be defined as a friendship?

He'd need to examine this more closely. It was kind of interesting.

Were the rules and ideas John had about the term universal or just his personal view?

The concept was obviously different in different persons... The information _he_ had about the subject seemed wrong when he compared them to John's. Or where they just from another mindset?… Had he learned them from people who had a totally different idea about the topic?

The symptoms John listed for a friendship differed profoundly from what he had learned in his youth.

He had wanted a friend when he was a child. He had pursued the idea until when he was at the U, during that time he had finally abandoned trying to make friends. There, he was told he wasn't able to have friends and that no one would want someone like him in their circle of friends.

That must mean those signs were common for other people.

What his fellow students had considered friendship was not even remotely what he wanted… Was the term really so wide in interpretation?

Probably… But John's definition felt… right. And Mrs Hudson seemed to agree with it. Mycroft would most likely not.

The only other person he might consider a friend was… Lestrade?

If 'not-being-taunted' and 'treated-fair' were hints for something that might become a friendship - a foundation of sorts, it was already there with the DI, and he had taken care of Sherlock in the past. Those were memories he tried to evade. Shameful ones, he was ashamed now, too.

Was the aftermath of shame - by being in need of help or having done something stupid - a factor for the assessment of the existence of friendship?

Had he made the mistake to think the foundation was the thing itself when he had called John a friend in Sebastian's presence?

It seemed to need a spoken invitation to start a friendship. Introducing John as a friend had obviously been the wrong way to ask.

It was probably beneficial that John was eager to explain human relationships to him, not being angry most of the time that he didn't get it. He definitely needed translation for that.

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Some time later John switched on the telly and handed Sherlock the remote, connected a new bag of electrolyte solution to the IV port.

He felt tired, the incommodious cold liquid sneaked up his arm and tasted stale… He hoped this whole feeling-under-the-weather-on-all-levels-of-existence-thing would be over soon. He really wanted to smoke a cigarette now… No chance John would give them to him. Maybe the patches?

He got lost before John found them.

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_A/N:_

_I love to get feedback. Constructive criticism welcome._

_Thank you for reading._


	17. Chapter 17 - Day 4 - Sherlock's POV

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

_Thank you so much for your reviews and your support :)._

_I left the days over the paragraphs, not to loose my sense of time, and decided to leave them there for your orientation, but Sherlock is definitely not away what day or time it is._

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**Chapter 17 – Sherlock's POV**

[Day 4 - Monday, noon]

In the morning Sherlock woke up when he needed to go to the bathroom - again!

He wondered how many kilometres he had moved by going this route in the past four days? It felt endless.

Maybe going around the table the other way or going through the stairway would make it less annoying, though right now he needed to go there _soon._

He sat up and a dangling noise from the lamp made him look that way.

Right, he was still leashed. No time for that now.

He took the IV bag with him to the bathroom, the opposite of graceful. He'd ask John to disconnect it as soon as it was empty.

.

When he sat back down at the couch a few minutes later he thought about showering; he felt even more filthy than yesterday.

John would throw a fit if he removed the port, but he itched everywhere, and his own smell was causing his mind to fell rancid.

He didn't like feeling this dark olive sensation everywhere.

Should he yell for him to come down?

Don't get on a friend's nerves too much. Mrs Hudson had said he had not slept, maybe letting him sleep would be a sign of friendship? Would it need to be uttered to be recognised?

He decided he might disconnect the line but not to remove the port if John had not shown up when it was empty. He would patiently wait to have a wash.

He hadn't thought it was possible but managed to doze off again.

Some time later John came down, did not give him a dress down for not waking him and headed for a shower.

The smell of clean wavered through the flat.

He wanted to experience that, too, being clean.

When the doctor came out of the bathroom he brought more of that John-smell, in combination with soap and shampoo and shaving foam.

He longed for a shower. He _needed_ a shower.

"If you make sure the IV port won't get wet you could have a bath," John offered.

That was really a nice offer.

John was acting in his interest. John was doing that often, wasn't he?… He had so often not recognised it, not acknowledged it that this had been done for him.

The past days had provided a shift of perspective.

How could he built this in, into his mind palace?

The shifting movement of his mind into the level of consciousness that observed John?

But maybe he didn't need to built in the process of shifting?

Maybe it was enough to just create a routine that… he was not sure how to even phrase this.

Was is necessary to counter-check from this perspective regularly?

It would be best to start a whole new database for John alone. Too much work to collect the information from all the others to observe them when needed. He had divided the topics until now. But John was present in every database he had.

Having all the John-specific information at one central point might provide a better output.

But leave tags on the old entries in case he searched there because he took another route to the database, a route that was not John-related.

He was so deep in thoughts and trying to figure out a way how to reorganise the mind palace and his databases that he only realised he had followed John into the bathroom when John spoke.

"You're awake?"

John added something smelling good to the water and gestured him to go ahead, then left.

The water looked warm and cosy and smelled good, he hurried in.

It _felt_ even better.

The heat warmed not only his weary body but his mind, too.

He almost fell asleep, but John regularly made noises in the kitchen and the living room, reminding him to keep that hand dry.

Washing his hair turned out to be annoying with one hand. He wondered how silly he looked fully under water just one hand doing a periscope imitation.

Glad nobody was there… and nobody saw the large bruises on his thigh, hip and sheen.

Had he really managed to fall?

This was awkward.

Finally, the water got cold and he returned to the living area.

John had news. The source of the infection was the crime scene on the industrial farm. The doctor repeated the information Lestrade had given him.

So _he_ was in fact the one who had caused this condition. _He_ had managed to get the bacteria inside his body.

How had he been so stupid? Why was John still kind to him when he knew it was his own fault?

Anderson got it, too, but Anderson was an idiot, argumentum et contrario - he was also an idiot.

Under these circumstances he deserved his misery, for being careless.

Had the pathogen been on his clothes and he transferred them into his mouth or nose somehow later?

Only a very small amount of Campylobacter was needed to cause an outbreak.

Was it possible he had inhaled them?

But Anderson wore a mask - but he was an idiot.

He felt disgusted by his own yellowish stupidity.

It tasted nasty.

… And John had even tried to prevent this.

Maybe, if he had worn protective clothing, he'd have prevented this. He felt like as a child when he had done something wrong and realised it was in fact his own fault.

John did not rub it under his nose, maybe he thought that his misery was enough punishment.

If Mycroft would hear this, there would be an endless stream of sneering.

Well, he deserved it, but John certainly didn't.

Listen to John then - sometimes at least.

John was the voice of reason so often and killed fun with that quite regularly. But to some of his advice he could manage to obey, would be courteous to spare him of anything like cleaning his puke again in the future.

That would be nice of himself, wouldn't it?

John brought him things to drink and whenever the doctor did, the remorse bit him somewhere in the back of his mind… and stomach. But he drank whatever he was given and even when it made him nauseous he kept it down with sheer willpower.

They watched telly and it was annoyingly boring.

Sherlock drifted in and out of sleep for several hours.

It felt bad, he hated that state, in fact he tried to avoid it whenever possible. His thoughts went haywire there without the control of his mind, and not in a good way, now even worse than usually. The flowing state caused perception of pain to increase, dark thoughts run free and come back in circles or waves.

The embarrassment tasted bad in his nose and mouth, it inflated with guilt. But he didn't know how to evade it, he was too exhausted to get up and occupy his mind properly.

He dreaded for something to knock him into sleep but understood that he didn't deserve it. Even trying to listen to the TV brought no easing, but the topics were as pathetic as he was.

No use.

.

After what felt like days John send him to bed… and removed the port, informing him he was doing a lot better.

He tried to will his mind to fall into sleep, but again he was trapped in the drifting state.

The pain rose in his consciousness, his intestines, his hip.

Yes, that was another dumb thing.

The bed was supposed to be much more comfortable than the sofa, why wasn't it?

No matter how he positioned himself - it hurt more and more… the disturbing bright green pain changed a yellow and orange, in several areas.

He wanted to force the sleep to come to escape, but it eluded him.

Again.

… and again.

Whenever he thought it was almost there and he'd only need to let himself fall into it, it vanished and the impact was hard, tasted chemical and disgusting.

His legs were tingling and banished sleep even more.

He continued to drift on and of.

After what felt like hours, he managed to slip into sleep once or twice but something painful woke him again… with a distant bomb-impact association.

Drifting off and being awaken again repeatedly made him feel ugly, not because he was sick currently, it also made him feel nauseous when he was in full health.

Something felt like it wanted to explode in his mind… like he needed to get it out but he didn't know what it was or how to do it.

Pressure was building.

Suddenly a soft and gentle movement swept away the nasty drifting state.

"Come on, Sherlock, wake up."

It brought him back to his bed from the sensory hell he had just visited and… from memories.

"You're in pain. Here are some painkillers. Take them."

How did John always seem to know when he was experiencing pain?

Should he take the easy way out of this?

John's voice was low, but clearly carried an order in it.

He gave him water, too.

"You're okay?"

John deserved gratefulness for his kindness and patience with this.

"Yes, I am, I think…. Thank you, John… for being kind and… offering… help."

The words were not easy to find, were those the right ones?

"You're welcome… Good night."

John sounded neither angry, nor unnerved and not disgusted at all.

He touched his shoulder.

Sherlock looked at the new database with John's name and added some more things. And to his database where it concerned John.

The area felt… since when did database entries had an accompanied sensation? They were entries for god's sake!

His mind stared at it.

The entry _felt_… warm? - Not really a fitting description of the sensation - or maybe _alive_… or _humming_?

He turned towards the information cluster, one that contained information about structural engineering calculation of building bridges… That one was not warm, it was quiet and white

So it was not his perception of how the entries felt, it was the cluster itself.

This was odd.

He marked the sensation with a question mark.

John had touched him and it felt _not-bad_.

Not good either, but _not bad_ was profound, since usually he evaded touch* because it felt uncomfortable… He was irritated by this whole being-sick-thing.

Desperately, he hoped the disarray in his mind would vanish soon.

Before he realised what was happening sleep cut of all further thoughts abruptly.

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_A/N:_

_* I tried to explain that in more detail in "Lessons in Friendship 2 – Touch"_


	18. Chapter 18 - Day 5 – Tuesday, lunchtime

**Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something **

_Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made._

_So this is the last chapter, the story unintentionally became a bit longer than originally planned. Hope you liked it. _

_RL background: I managed to get a Campylobacter-infection when I had just started senior high school / sixth form. I got a nice dress down by the doctor (when after four days I finally was dragged there) for not showing up earlier. I did not tell him I feared to be misunderstood once more and therefore didn't consider it. I fetched it because I warmed up something in the microwave that contained contaminated eggs. Since it was the first microwave my family owned (and we had it only for a few months) I didn't know it heated the food up to a temperature that was ideal for bacteria multiplying instead of killing them. Well, now I know better._

_._

_Thank you so much for your support, reviews and feedback :)._

_._

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**Chapter 18**

**Day 5 – Tuesday, lunchtime**

"Sherlock, you haven't eaten for days, you need some nourishment!"

"Isn't there some kind of intravenous fluid to do that?" Sherlock asked, rolling his eyes.

"Nope, stomach tube, maybe… but I wouldn't recommend that one," John said with a bit of mischief in his voice.

"Chances are high I'd probably follow your recommendation."

"So, you'll eat like a normal person, easy things for your stomach," the doctor stated, "Open that dressing gown," John stood next to the couch, with the intention to examine Sherlock once more.

His flatmate followed his orders like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Was he doing this to irritate John?

"But chewing is disgusting."

John's mouth fell open. He had definitely never heard _that_ before.

Was that the reason Sherlock refused to eat so often or was it just now because of the illness?

Or was it a joke? This whole conversation had a silly undertone from the start.

"I can make some soup, or mashed potatoes, you won't have to chew those, would also fit the description 'easy on your stomach'."

Sherlock pulled a childish face.

"The idea of food or even smelling it is making me… nauseous."

"I know. That's perfectly normal in your condition, and the reason why I only ate cold toast and simple sandwiches for the past days. I knew you'd throw up as soon as you'd smell food."

"You did that?"

"Yes, Sherlock."

"Why did you do that?"

"I just told you."

"That's very nice of you, isn't it?"

"That was the idea, glad you understand."

"Can you make some microwave popcorn - salted - later?"

"What?"

"You heard me, didn't you…?" Sherlock murmured, a bit irritated.

"Yes, you want popcorn later. Does it have to be microwave popcorn? I could make some fresh one more easily, we have dried corn. I'd have to go to Tesco to get some for the microwave. Besides fresh tastes better."

"I know, I usually prefer fresh, too. But the odd taste the instant stuff has is exactly what my… _something_ is… asking for?"

"There have been quite an awful lot of 'unknown somethings' ghosting through your mind and our conversations here in the past few days."

The detective frowned, not understanding the hint about how much uncharted territory they had come into contact with during Sherlock's sickness.

"And… you know, popcorn is not exactly what would be considered a 'light meal' after days of puking," John continued.

"What?"

"I want to say it could be too much for your stomach and you might throw it up again if you assault your body with things it can't handle."

"Why is it telling me it wants it then, if it can't?"

"You know the answer to that, so why are you asking me?"

"No, my brain is kind of messed up. Whenever I feel I start thinking straight again a wisp of something comes by and turns six to seven thoughts in totally different directions than they were heading before."

"Something?" John smiled.

Sherlock looked irritated, "My thoughts get indentations and then I get unnerved and I don't understand what I was thinking… and the connection between my thoughts and the databases is stuttering… When will this end?" he wined.

"Your thoughts get buckles?… Really?" John smiled at him once more, "You're sick, Sherlock. This is normal. Your body and mind are exhausted and wired, nothing to worry about."

"It's disgusting. My mind feels like it wants to throw up, too, but neither I nor it have a clue how to do that."

This left John helpless, because he couldn't even guess what emotions Sherlock was describing right now, or if it was a simple perception.

"Besides, if it makes me sick, maybe my body will learn not to ask for something that is stupid in this state in the future."

"Sherlock, it doesn't work that way. Your body is not a stubborn self-contained entity."

The moment he had said it he wondered if that exactly was Sherlock's problem with his 'transport', that it _was_ an entity he wasn't really fond of or wanted to be connected to. He needed to keep that bit of information under surveillance.

"It probably doesn't even need salted popcorn. There probably _is_ something in there your body needs right now, maybe just plain and simple salt. And your body knows that, so you have a craving for a thing that is rich with what you need. Your stomach is talking to your brain, even if you try to deny it… and it is communicating needs… so listen to it, but do it with care."

"I don't… know how to… do that."

John stared at him, "You don't know or you don't want to?"

"I….?" Sherlock looked lost and quite tired.

"Okay, just listen to me when I tell you, because I'm a doctor, I know such things… and I might be able to translate… I'll go to Tesco then. You need something else?"

John went over to the dining table and wrote down the shopping list on an old piece of paper.

"Eh… Cola."

Sherlock usually didn't go for soft drinks but John realised this might be another of his body's needs.

The sick man's eyes had closed and he looked as if close to sleep.

"Are you still in pain?"

"Hm, some morphine would be great," Sherlock muttered, already drifting.

"Nope, for this kind of pain morphine would be overkill. Besides, I can't just go and buy some. And if I could, I would _not_ give it to you," John informed him in a voice that underlined this should be totally clear to him.

"I could…" Sherlock was half asleep and kind of malnourished so John decided that it didn't count as a real conversation.

"…But I won't, and I wouldn't give it to me either… But I'd find it funny if you wrote it on your shopping list."

Sherlock smiled slightly with closed eyes. It was not a faked smile.

"Was more of a joke… I imagined your shopping list on a piece of ripped paper with morphine in it and then you losing the sheet or someone seeing it lying on the conveyor belt and the look on that someone's face when he reads the list. Obviously not a funny joke... Bad one, sorry. You might want to replace it with… oh yeah, a 'yellow-pink 87,6 m long staircase carpet', might have the same effect."

"Not the same, this _actually_ would be funny and nobody would look at me like I'm a junkie… or having a severely sick relative!… Sleep, mate," John rolled his eyes.

He took his jacket and wallet and headed for Tesco, at least Sherlock seemed to feel better.

The other man would feel the aftermath of this for at least another three to five days.

What made John wonder was the fact that Sherlock had endured his examination very compliant.

The past days had been not only hard on Sherlock in a way that being this sick would be on everybody, but mentally hard, too.

John saw it in Sherlock's posture that something had changed and something was not quite right, though he was not able to pinpoint it.

His flatmate had those phases where he didn't speak, he had learned there was not one reason, like 'he's thinking' for that, there were several 'not-talking-moods'.

And the one John had observed yesterday was new.

Often, Sherlock played the violin during a phase of not speaking, but this time he only stared at it. John had been sure he'd play as soon as he'd be able to stand upright again, but he didn't. It was almost as if he was self-denying it.

But the doctor knew Sherlock's paths of logic and feelings were different, no premature conclusions… He decided to step back and watch.

There had been many astounding things he had witnessed in the past days… many of them mechanisms built after being misunderstood and frustrated long ago. He'd watch out for those in the future, making sure he wouldn't be the cause for any of those surfacing because of him.

Sherlock needed someone who 'tuned in'… he had shown more trust in the past days than John had dared to hope for a week ago. The doctor had been granted touch and examinations, repeatedly… and Sherlock had asked him for help, those were large steps forward, in a good direction.

The whole thing hadn't been nice and had exhausted them both, but it seemed to have boosted Sherlock's trust in him and his will to open up a bit. This was at least one good thing coming from the whole mess.

Well, and the thing about friendship… that had been another eye-opener.

Why hadn't Sherlock understood before that he was offering friendship?… His explanations of the subject seemed to have been kind of new territory for Sherlock.

It had been hard for John to see how careful he was with this and how bad the experiences in his youth must have been. He had officially taken the offer and signalled he wanted this friendship.

The moment John had asked he hadn't been sure if he'd get an incisive remark for an answer.

Sherlock had asked ridiculous, clueless and innocent questions about the whole friendship-thing… it was almost painful to see him that lost and unconfident with that topic… and wonder how his past had been without people who were fond of him. Also, it was difficult to see him being sick and in pain. Several aspects of that were kind of disturbing.

Sherlock definitely had loads of feelings, but he seemed unable to connect them with the descriptions a normal person would use. His way to describe sensations and feelings was odd, maybe even uniquely honest, John hadn't decided yet.

It was not that Sherlock didn't want to describe something that was different for him, he had just made bad experiences with not been understood… The more he understood the man, the more interesting it got.

John had seen a whole new side of Sherlock… of his friend.

_._

* * *

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_A/N:_

_I'd love to get some feedback.  
_


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